That was a good one. All right, here we go. So, ladies and gentlemen, thanks again for tuning in to another episode of Barrel to Bottle, The Binny's Podcast. My name is Kristin. I'm here, as always, with Roger. Hey, Roger. Hey, pleasure to be here. I'm happy to see you back from vacation. I could have spent some more time in Cali. I'm not going to complain. I spoke to you at the gate before you got in your flight to come home, and Greg, he was like, no, you don't want to do it. And that laughter is Greg Verrish. Hey, Greg. Hey, Kristin, how are you doing? Oh, I'm doing very well. Thanks for asking. I'm excited about today. We have a special guest here. We have Fawn Weaver. Hey, Fawn. Hello. I love your name. So we're very, very happy to have you here today. You're making a splash with your new whiskey brand that you're representing. Indeed. And quite a story behind it as well. And doing the research for the podcast before you came in today, got me more and more excited to hear about the message of Uncle Nearest and where this is going. So I guess we'll just get started with a little bit about you before we get into Uncle Nearest, the history and the whiskey itself. Is that okay with you guys? You on board? Yeah. Let's talk about Fawn. All right. Let's talk about Fawn. So I am first and foremost a family person. So we'll start there because everything comes after that. And how I approach this makes sense because family to me is most important. And then beside that, then I have been an entrepreneur now 23 years. I try to look the same age as the amount of time I've been in business. You're doing well. Good. That is always my goal. So for the last 23 years, I've been an entrepreneur. And this is the first project that I have ever invested in, that I've ever been a part of, that pulls together everything I love. And so that is ironically whiskey, of course, and great stories, the ability to write and to tell the story, and then to be able to translate that story visually. So in the case of this as a movie, and then beyond that, our distillery, we have about 30 championship Tennessee Walking Horses at the distillery property. And so it brought together all of those loves, and my family and Nearest's family, all sort of just kind of working to make sure that this is right. That's great. You said, I'm sorry, what kind of horses? Tennessee Walking Horses. Is that like, is that like, prancer sizing? Is that a dress size thing? So here's the funny thing is I was just telling someone this morning, because they're from Kentucky, he was big on their Kentucky horses, right? They're thoroughbreds. And I said, well, what about our Tennessee Walking Horses? And he says, oh, you got our leftovers. And I was explaining to him, actually, the first Tennessee Walking Horse breed came from them taking a Union Horse and a Confederate Horse and breeding it. And that became the Tennessee Walking Horse immediately after the Civil War. So it's like this horse of unity. Right. And, but if you look at the horse, it's fascinating because the front has this really high gate because it wants to run from the Kentucky side. Then the Tennessee side of it is walking really slow because it does not want to run. So to watch this horse, it looks like it's two different horses on the same body. But it makes for a great competition. Oh, I know what I'm going to YouTube after this podcast. Tennessee Walking Horses. I got to see this anomaly. Well, Tennessee is only known for three things, country music, whiskey, Tennessee Walking Horses. Okay. That's what we're known for. Cool. That's awesome. Well, it's an important story. So I think we should get into that story of Uncle Nearest. Yeah. So I was in Singapore and on the cover of the New York Times in Singapore, there was an article and the article said, Jack Daniels embraces a hidden ingredient, help from a slave. And I remember just as an African American, I am opening my newspaper in Asia, and that's on the cover and it had a picture of Jack next to an African American man, which at this time they thought was nearest. It was not. It's his son. But at the time, I thought it was nearest. So I'm looking at this. My eyes are getting big as saucers. My husband's sitting across from me thinking, oh my gosh, what happened in America? And I flip the paper around and he and I both had the same reaction like, this can't be real. And if it is real, then that means that this may be the first truly all-American story that where there is this major American brand that we can at least partially give credit to an African American. So for African Americans, of course, we helped to build the country we all did, right? But so rarely do we see in writing how we helped to do that. And there's a lot of reasons for that. But the reality is this is the first time in my 42 years of living that I was actually seeing something like that. So for me, it was exciting. And so the first thing I did was go back to the hotel room and begin googling. And there's nothing other than this article. And then there's all these regurgitations of the article that pop up all over the country, basically saying the same exact thing. And then a Wikipedia page popped up. And that Wikipedia page referenced Jack Daniel's biography, and it's called Jack Daniel's Legacy. And so I begin reading this book with the thought that Nearest must have been mentioned in it once, because it was in the Wikipedia page, right? But as I'm reading it, over and over and over again, throughout the entire book, he and his boys are mentioned. Now I've actually counted it a total of 50 times. In a small biography. So I looked at this and said, okay, we've got this story wrong, because the original story, right, was that the recipe was stolen and that he wasn't given the credit and all the rest of this. But then I'm reading this biography that was written back in 1967 and going, well, if you're not giving someone credit, this is the strangest way not to give someone credit, right? And so then it became a diving in and figuring out, well, where did the credit get lost? Because it's clear when Jack was alive, when his family was alive, that he was being given credit. So when did that change? And so that I began looking at. But what was most impressive to me is the author who wrote the book. He was a reporter and the manner in which he referred to both Nearest and his children made it clear that one, what he did was incredibly important, the teaching of Jack Daniel. But number two, it was a relationship between an African-American elder and a young white boy. And it was a mentorship. He was Nearest's pupil, if you will. And to see that and to read about it in such a way where it seemed like a positive relationship, I wanted to know more about it. And so that led me of all places from Los Angeles, California to Lynchburg, Tennessee. And I show up to do research. And in my mind, this is going to be a book, and this is going to be a movie, and it's going to be incredible. And I'm going to drink whiskey all the way throughout. And so I began doing a little bit of research at the library. And I was at the library for maybe an hour, couldn't find anything, but had the librarian help me to try to find something on Nearest. I figured if he was this important, there has to be something in this library. There was nothing. But the librarian made a call to the director of the library. And maybe 15, 20 minutes later, this woman walks through the door. The librarian beelines over to her, so we know, okay, she's important. She doesn't look like she fits in. She's in a suit. She's like the head librarian of all librarians. Of all librarians, right? That's like a military sort of organization. I'm looking at this woman and going, okay, we're in Lynchburg. Everyone outside right now is in camouflage because it was hunting season. So I'm like, everyone in the whole square is in camouflage, and this woman is coming in in a black suit with a scarf wrapped around. It looked like she was from New York versus Lynchburg, Tennessee. And so I'm looking out of the side of my eye going, who is this woman? So when Jack Daniel passed away, you guys probably know he did not have any descendants. Or no children. His descendants were all by way of nieces and nephews, and he left his distillery to his nephew, Lem Motlow. So this woman comes in and she's trying to be discreet, and the librarian is not letting her be discreet based on how she runs over to her. And she says, oh, I'm just here for an audiobook. And then she tries to whisper to the librarian a question. And she's a millennial. She didn't know you respond to a whisper with a whisper. Do you hear that, millennials? Yeah, you heard it. Fawn Weaver is trying to drop something for you. Listen, I love the honesty of millennials. It's my favorite thing about them. So she's trying to be completely discreet, and the millennial respond to her and says, oh, yeah, they're here. They're doing research on the slave that taught Jack Daniel. And that wasn't what she was expecting, I'm sure. And so she says, well, do you know Dan Call? And he's the person who had previously been given credit for teaching Jack. And the woman says, yes, I do know, of course, I know Dan Call. And she walks over to our table where we're sitting in the middle of a bunch of books. And she looks at me and she says, I would be happy to help you with your research. I am Judy Boy Turgeon. I am the granddaughter of Lim Motlow. Wow, cool. Right. That went through town fast. Yeah. And her arriving there let me know, one, that there's concern about their family legacy. You have this African American author who just shows up in the middle of Lynchburg, town population, small. Six. Yeah, tiny. And at that point, the story that had gone around was that Jack stole the recipe from Nearest. And so if you're following that, then you're concerned about me being there. And so I looked at her and I shared with her why I was there. And I said, listen, I read Jack's biography. And I don't think that if you're trying to hide someone's existence, you include them over and over again. So when I read the book, I really looked in between the lines to see what wasn't being said in a time frame where there's normally a preface if you're including an African American or a former slave and a book. And I told her, I believe that there is actually a story of love, honor and respect here. I am doing the research. If I do the research and I find that this story is not what I think it is, I assure you someone will write this story, but it will not be me. And immediately she pull out her phone and she says, I'm going to help you. And she starts giving me a list of Jack's descendants and nearest descendants of who I should call to begin with. And that is how all of it began. I was there thinking I'd be there for four days. I still haven't left. It's 18 months later. Wow. Yeah. Congrats. Thank you. That's dedication. Well, here was the last thing that she said to me. And now that I've gotten to know Judy, she's just an amazing, amazing woman. The last thing she said is she was leaving the library. She says, you know, the farm in that book that you read, where everything takes place. And it's true. Most of Jack's biography takes place at the Dan Call Farm, because that's where Nearest had his distillery, and that's where he taught Jack. And that is where the first Jack Daniel distillery was until at least 1881, but possibly until 1884. And she says, you know, it's for sale. And she draws out a little map on a Post-It note. We went and bought it. Cool. So that, so the house that is on the bottle, and that 313-acre property where the same water that Nearest was using to make the whiskey still runs through the property, the original, the millstones from the Grist Mill, they're still there. The pipes from the original, that pipe to the original distillery, still there. You're not using it though. Well, I tell you what, that water is some of the best water. So I keep saying, we can't use it in the whiskey because our distillery site is somewhere else in Tennessee. And so I say, we can't use it really for the whiskey, not now, but I should bottle it because that's some good water. From your story, it sounds like there's research-driven uncovering, but really what you've found is a community secret and then pulled that story out of the people. Well, here's the crazy part. It was no secret. This is what was fascinating to me. So I am in the community doing something very normal, getting a pedicure. And I asked the woman who was doing my nails, I said, so when the story came out in the New York Times about the slave having taught Jack rather than the slave, they referred to him as a slave owner, Dan Call actually rented nearest, but I know for most people, there's not a distinguishment between owning and renting another person. But I said to her, how did people here respond when they found out it was a slave? And she looks at me with the most blank face and she says, well, they didn't say anything. We always knew. So this was not something that was not unknown in Lynchburg. The problem is it didn't leave Lynchburg. And then at some point later down the line, long after Jack was gone, after his descendants were running the distillery, at some place, at some time, the story went away from it being nearest was the first master distiller and nearest was Jack's teacher to Jack was the first master distiller and Dan Call was Jack's teacher. This is a remarkable story that someone's legacy of excellence can be brought back to life 150, 160 years later and have to have the honor to be able to do that. I don't spend a whole lot of time trying to figure out where it got lost. And the genesis of the nickname was just because he was such a lovely human being. Listen, we say it's nearest and dearest. Because no one's calling me nearest. I'm just going to go on a limb, a very short limb. But you know what, even his great-granddaughters that still live right outside of Lynchburg right now, Rabbit and Chick, love them. No one, including their children, call them by their first names. Everyone calls them Rabbit and Chick. And if you ask them where they got their nicknames, no clue, no clue. And so we have no idea. Everyone in that family from that timeframe pretty much all had nicknames, but we have no idea where any of them came from. That's great. Yeah, that's cool. Nearest. What would you say as far as your research goes, has it primarily been oral history then, or have you found much written record or? Both, both. So I traveled to, at this point, far more states, but at that time I pulled records and documents from five different states. And when it was all said and done, and I should not say it's just me, there were about a team of about 20 historians, archaeologists, archivists, conservators, genealogists. To this day, no one has billed me, which makes me laugh because I was hiring people. But they began working on this and it became so a part of, we have to help you tell this story, that I never received a bill from anyone. I was like, well, this is the cheapest way to hire people. But we pulled documents from all these different states. And when it was all said and done, it was about 10,000 documents. And there were original letters and going to and from Lynchburg. There were books. There were just a lot of different things. Tax records really helped to tell the story because when everything burns, somehow the IRS documents do not. So as I'm trying to piece together all the distilleries and who was doing what, and what is true and what was not true, all of the IRS records, no, they weren't in one place. I had to pull them from four different places, but all the IRS records were still intact, which in and of itself lets you know, don't mess with the IRS. Exactly. I learned that long ago. People ask me all the time, how old was Nearest? What year was he born? I say, well, I can tell you what the census said, but the reality is, someone was guessing when they did the census. There's no way to know. We have no idea. The part of the story that I focus on is once we find him in Lynchburg, because that's where we have the most records of, and after slavery is where we're able to really pick up the story and to tell the story. So I don't spend a lot of time focused on the period of time where he was enslaved, because I have so little record. Right. But I do have record of the amazing life he created for himself and his children and everyone after he was free. Why did he get into distilling in the first place? Is that something that you've been able to discern or? There is no way to know that. What I will say is when it came to distillers, if you are an enslaved person and you had a skill set other people didn't have, your treatment was a lot better. And so distillers who were enslaved were usually, for the most part, by all documents that we've been able to find, they were treated really well. And so if I'm enslaved during that period of time, I'm choosing distilling too, if it's an option. So that was, and it's ironic because it's sort of that legacy of distilling, it began with us bringing in different things and learning and being the people who were there. And it was a tough job, but it was a job that required a really high skill set. And the fact that he was rented would mean that he had that skill set before he came to that farm. Okay. In which he was distilling, because you would have rented someone who already had a really good skill set. So this by and large could have happened at any time. His learning how to distill and being exposed to it from Maryland to Tennessee, we don't know. Any time. And when you think about it, the very first time we see charcoal filtering, which is what Nearest was known for, the difference between bourbon and Tennessee whiskey is what Nearest taught, that Lincoln County process, that filtration process. Well, we see that for the first time in Kentucky in the 1700s. Nearest wasn't born at that time. So then Kentucky decided not to use it. It ends up in Tennessee. We have no idea where that came from. But what I believe is the origin of it is West Africa. That's how they were filtering their water. It's how they were purifying their food was with activated charcoal. And so it's something that we sort of see just show up in Kentucky. And I always tease people, if something just shows up in the middle of the 1700s or the 1800s, and no one has taken credit for it, give the credit to a slave just on general principle. And that is likely. I'm comfortable with that. Yeah, right? Yeah. So I'm not sure who brought it first. My guess is you had the Scottish and you had the Irish that were making the whiskey. And you have these West African slaves that are tasting it and going, good Lord, you know, because they were distilling fruit. So it would have been a lot sweeter. And you're taking some of that stuff back and going, oh my gosh, there's got to be a way to sort of smooth this out a little bit. And then entering in that charcoal mellowing process. That is my guess. I can't prove it. Sure. Okay. Okay. So you've taken this amazing story. Yes. You've disseminated it the best you can. And the way that you're sort of bringing it back to life is by creating Uncle Nearest Whiskey. Absolutely. And it's ironic because when we first began this project, the team, we sat around in a room and I said to all those that were handpicked to work on this project, said, we have the enormous responsibility of raising up one legend without harming the legacy of another, because I have a great fondness for Jack. And I want it to make sure as we are making sure the world knows who nearest is, so he can rightfully take his position next to Jack and next to Johnny. As we're doing that, we have to make sure that the person who he mentored, the person who clearly treated him with a level of respect during a timeframe when he didn't have to, that did not see race as a barrier of making him his first master distiller, we have to make sure that we continue to honor that in this process. So we have this whole group around. So that was the first thing. And then the second thing was, so what do we name this? Because if we put nearest green on a bottle before we've told people nearest green is a name, you think it's a local golf course, right? Where's the nearest green? Imagine seeing that on a bar before we've identified them. There was a serious debate at the table because there were people who were concerned about the uncle, right? Because the good slaves were called uncle and aunt, right? Back in the day. But in this case, in Lynchburg, whether you were black or white, you said uncle or aunt based on respect. And so ultimately, we decided we want people to know that he was the distiller who deserves respect. And so we named it Uncle Nearest. It's pretty cool. Very cool. I'm excited. Yeah. Roger wants to taste, I can tell. Have you not tasted Uncle Nearest? No, I have not yet. It's been around, but I haven't had a chance. So here we have the Uncle Nearest 1856. It's a beautiful bottle, great label. Good job on the graphics there. Thank you. Okay, get the nose. What do you have on the nose? I mean, caramel and maple syrup, and something sweeter. Yeah, vanilla. What I like is I don't get a lot of that typical banana you can get with Tennessee whiskey when it's too heavily done. I mean, it's not an aroma that I go after, and I don't get that here. This is kind of like some serious stuff. The best way to describe it is Uncle Nearest was born and raised in Tennessee and went to finishing school in Kentucky. And the reason why I say that is our head of whiskey operation, Sherry Moore, there was a process that she was adamant we do as our final step, our final two steps for this. And the reason is, is we knew we were going to bottle at 100 proof, because Nearest, he always put his whiskey in the barrel at 110, proofed it down, and then pulled it out of the barrel when it was very close to 100, so he only had to put in a very small amount of water. So we knew we wanted to mirror that. But we also did not want people taking a sip and saying, oh, that's hot, you know, that's the worst. And so the way that we were able to get this really smooth taste that can still hold up in a drink, right? But it's really smooth and it's strong. We were able to do it by, we ship our barrels to Kentucky, and we do our final two processes there, and then put it on stale tankers, and bring it back to Tennessee to Bottle. I mean, it is pretty high octane. Yeah. But it's such concentrated flavor that it hides the alcohol. So therein lies the balance. I love it. Well, we released in last July, we've already won eight awards. And so it's a very special whiskey. And if we were going to put out a bottle with Nearest's name on it, and we were going to honor him, we had to make sure that the juice, that's what we call it, that the juice lived up to the story. We call it the juice too. Yeah. So that was the key. The juice must live up to the amazing story. And I think we did it. I think it does. You had mentioned cocktails. Do you have recommended cocktails? Oh, the Tennessee Mule. God bless the vodka drinkers. I'm going to need you to come over to whiskey. That's what I'm going to need. Something that's been resting in a barrel, something that's taken some more time. It works incredibly well in a penicillin. It makes one of the best old fashions you will ever have. It also makes one of my favorites with it is a tiger's tail, which is essentially a lion's tail, but swapping out the traditional drum for allspice drum. Incredible. Cool. You should throw an orange wedge into the Tennessee Mule and call it a Tennessee Walking Mule. Well, you know what's the funny thing is I have a part of my research is there was this one lawsuit that Jack Daniel got subpoenaed for. It was actually, he wasn't a part of the lawsuit other than he got subpoenaed for testimony. In it, they ask him about horses and he's like, I never use horses, I only use mules. So that's what makes me laugh about it. I'm like, now it's a legitimate Tennessee Mule. Dumb joke scores again. That was great. Well, thank you for coming in and for sharing the story of Nearest Green with us. Thank you for being so supportive of us here. Yeah, thank you. We're grateful for you and your time today. The truth is in the juice, right? And it's some serious stuff, so I enjoy it very much. Thanks for that. Uncle Nearest 1856, Fawn Weaver. Thank you. Roger. Really excited for your future releases. Thanks, Roger. Keep tasting.