The founder of an award-winning Black-owned whiskey brand reveals how she's thriving in the mostly white male alcohol industry

businessinsider.com ^ | Jennifer Ortakales Dawkins

[RoosterRedux]

Uncle Nearest has generated more than $100 million in sales since its launch, information Insider verified with documentation.

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The daughter [Fawn Weaver] of the Motown musician Frank Wilson, Weaver started her first business, in special events and public relations, at the age of 18. She also published two books about marriage in 2014 and 2015.

As an author, Weaver was intrigued by a 2016 New York Times story about a man named Nathan Green, or "Uncle Nearest," who was the first known African American master distiller. The story said Jack Daniel's was finally embracing Green's role as a former slave who taught the company's founder the craft.

*snip*

That year, Weaver visited the farm in Tennessee where Green made his whiskey and learned that the property had been on the market for 15 months. So she decided to buy it for an undisclosed amount.

Her four-day trip turned into a 12-month research project. She partnered with more than 20 historians and researchers to confirm more of Green's history, including that he was the first master distiller for the Jack Daniel's distillery.

"This white boy grows up learning from this African American man, and when he gets old enough to own his own business, then asks for his mentor to be his top dog," she said.

"Race didn't really play into it from all of the research that we've done at this point," she added. "It's very, very clear that this was one of the first cases we've ever seen of allyship."

As her business began with a story, so it continued. In 2017, Weaver opened the Nearest Green Distillery and launched Uncle Nearest Premium Whiskey, making storytelling the foundation of her brand's success.

[Theophilus]

Let's try again.

[FroedrickVonFreepenstein]

Good luck with that.