Sidecar: Q&A With Fawn Weaver
The Last Decade's Most Impactful Figure in American Whiskey Talks About the Industry's Present and Future.
No figure of the last decade has had a bigger impact on the world of American whiskey than Fawn Weaver, the co-founder, CEO and chief historian of Uncle Nearest Premium Whiskey. Her story is something out of a fairy tale. Weaver was having breakfast on the top floor of the Four Seasons hotel in Singapore when she read a June 25, 2016, story in the New York Times written by whiskey writer Clay Risen. It told the story of Nathan “Nearest” Green, a former slave who was the first master distiller at Jack Daniel’s and taught a young Daniels how to make whiskey. Like much of the rest of the world, Weaver first learned from that article of the existence of Nearest Green and the important role he played in American whiskey history.
Her reaction was not small. Weaver moved to Tennessee, did exhaustive research on Green; convinced Brown-Forman, which owns Jack Daniel’s, to formally recognize Green’s contribution; bought the farm where Green and Daniel first worked together; built a distillery in Shelbyville, Tennessee; and, by 2017, produced the whiskey that she named after Green. She basically rewrote the history of America’s most famous whiskey brand. This made Weaver the first African-American woman to head a major spirits brand, and she did it with an all-female executive team. Today, Uncle Nearest produces seven whiskeys, including multiple expressions of Tennessee Whiskey and Rye.
The distillery, now worth more than $1 billion, is the fastest-growing American whiskey brand in history.
The Mix caught up with the busy Weaver to talk about the American whiskey business and her passion for it. The interview is below.
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