![]() ![]() "People had been saying this for a very long time, but there was not one shred of proof. presidential elections, but I thought the last thing that America needed at that time was for Jack Daniel to come out again after all this commentary and raise up this story again." Then we were into that month or two leading up to the U.S. It was a very tense time in America, as well. "It ranged from some very positive commentary on the story to some very vitriolic. "There was an enormous amount of blowback," McCallum said. The company first acknowledged Green as Daniel's mentor last year. "When we've known and understood the weight of this story, all I can offer is anything we can do to continue to honor the name of Nearest, we will do," said Mark McCallum, president of Jack Daniel's brands. A1972 article in the Tennessee Historical Quarterly listed Nearest Green as Jack Daniel's first head distiller. Weaver soon found evidence in black and white. "And then after slavery he started his own company and the person he went to first was his mentor, and he did not see race as a barrier," Weaver said. Call teamed Daniel with Green, one of his slaves and his main whiskey man. ![]() In the late 1850s, Jack Daniel, an orphan, started working for a wealthy landowner and whiskey distiller named Dan Call. "I knew she had no reason to make up a story like that," Staples said. "Finally, one of the elders in the community says, 'Well, you know his name wasn't really Nearest.' Well, his name was Nathan and he's from Maryland," she said.Īfter digging for over 2,500 hours and speaking to more than 100 relatives, it started to come together.ĭebbie Staples - a great-granddaughter of Green's - had heard the tales of whiskey from her grandmother. Over the past year, Weaver has collected a library of documents, letters and pictures hoping to parse the truth from folklore. And it's never been spoken about until now?" Weaver said.įor Weaver, finding proof of Green's legacy has become a passion bordering on obsession. It was possible that an African-American was behind Jack Daniel's. "It was on the cover of The New York Times international edition. What Nearest Green, a slave, did was teach Jack Daniel how to make whiskey. "It's important to set the record straight because anyone who accomplished something like Nearest did should be honored," Weaver said. Then his name seemed to disappear, until author Fawn Weaver helped uncover the truth at the heart of how Daniel came to make whiskey, reports CBS News correspondent Michelle Miller. ![]() Some of the first clues about the role of Nearest Green were in Daniel's official biography, published in 1967, more than half a century after his death. But a story about how Jack Daniel began his distillery is only now gaining attention. The popular drink has been around for 151 years and its recipe is on the company's website. There's no mystery about what goes into Jack Daniel's whiskey. The lost story of Nearest Green, the slave who taught Jack Daniel how to make whiskey. ![]()
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