Uncle Nearest CEO, Fawn Weaver isn't the type to back down from a challenge or destined opportunity. Weaver has been a serial entrepreneur for 25 years but is a storyteller at her core, which led her to create Uncle Nearest Premium Whiskey in 2016. While traveling abroad in Singapore with her husband, she saw a photo of Jack Daniel and George Green, the son of a previously unknown master whiskey distiller, Uncle Nearest. Uncle Nearest, was a formerly enslaved man who taught Jack Daniel how to make Tennessee whiskey. After learning about Uncle Nearest and Jack Daniel's interconnected history, Weaver followed the story down to Tennessee, which led her to purchase the 300-acre farm in Lynchburg, Tennessee, where Nearest taught Jack how to distill. Without any experience in distilling, she decided to open up the Nearest Green Distillery in Shelbyville, Tennessee.
Uncle Nearest Premium Whiskey is the fastest-growing American whiskey brand in U.S. history, the best-selling African American-founded spirit brand of all time, and was the most award-winning American whiskey (including bourbon) of 2019, 2020, and 2021.
In addition to being at the helm of Uncle Nearest Premium Whiskey, Weaver is also the founder of the Nearest Green Foundation. This 501(c)(3) non-profit organization offers full scholarships to every descendant of Nearest Green, the world's first known African-American master distiller.
Through their Operation Brother's Keeper initiative, the Foundation supplied more than 300,000 N-95 and cloth masks to workers on the frontline and people in disadvantaged communities during the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2020, in response to the BLM movement, the Foundation allied with Jack Daniel Distillery to create the Nearest and Jack Advancement Initiative, elevate people of color within the American whiskey industry, and significantly increase the diversity spirits industry.
Forbes spoke with Weaver about her entrepreneurship journey and what drove her to create Uncle Nearest Premium Whiskey from the ground up.
Dominique Fluker: Before becoming the CEO of Uncle Nearest, you were a public relations and special events founder, a bestseller author, and a hospitality executive. Share your entrepreneurship journey with us?
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Fawn Weaver: I didn't have an online presence before Uncle Nearest, outside of being a bestselling author. I've been investing in lifestyle brands, whether restaurants or fitness studios, for the better part of the last 20 years. Before that, I had special events and a PR firm. I became an entrepreneur when I was 18, and I'm now 45, so we're going back 27 years. Entrepreneurship has been my life. I've always stayed in the realm of storytelling. I'm drawn to brands that have a good story.
Fluker: Let's reflect on June 2016; where were you when you first heard distiller Nathan Nearest Green's story? What made you trek to Tennessee to interview his descendants, to uncover a story, and to reveal that he was close and had an extremely tight connection with Jack Daniels?
Weaver: I was in Singapore on my husband's business trip when I first saw Uncle Nearest on the cover of the New York Times International Edition. The photo showed Jack Daniels surrounded by his entire team, who was all white, but in the center was a Black man, George Green, son of Nearest Green. That was how we came to know the story, was a headline that said, "Jack Daniels embraces a secret ingredient, help from a slave."
But the photo with the Black men next to him, people hadn't seen before. I'm looking at this photo and going, "This isn't just a black man to the right of Jack Daniel." It's the 19th century that in and of itself was already strange. More importantly, if you look at the photo overall, Jack is the off-center one. He ceded the center position of the image to the black man. So, the question was, who's the Black man?
There was a story there. Because everyone looked at the image and began to immediately assume that Jack Daniel enslaved a person, that he'd stolen the recipe, that he'd hidden the enslaved person or that he didn't give him credit. It was clear Jack Daniels didn't want anyone to forget who the Black man in the photo was. The story started circulating on the internet very quickly. Many people took the title, "Jack Daniels embraces hidden ingredients, help from a slave." Then everybody began writing stories that had nothing to do with the original story. Because I was in Singapore trying not to think about the money I was about to lose in this investment, I had days while my husband was in meetings to do nothing but sleuth the internet.
A Wikipedia page popped up later in the day, and it referenced a book called Jack Daniel's Legacy. I decided to order it on Amazon. During the Singapore trip, I learned that my niece, Britney, who I helped raise, got into a bad motorcycle accident. So, you go from this experience in Singapore, reading this story, this headline, becoming inspired but then losing my niece/daughter. The last thing I'm thinking about is Jack and the Black man sitting next to him after this point. After journeying back to Los Angeles and planning her funeral, I got back to work. I went into my office and saw the Jack Daniel's Legacy book on my desk. I pull out the book, and I start reading it. I was running from grief. The book very quickly became an escape and where the story began.
Fluker: What possessed you to explore this story further?
Weaver: Well, I think you had two things going on. I didn't want to deal with grieving my niece's death. I also did not want to deal with a failed investment. The book, for me, was a refuge. In 2016, I was a couple of months away from turning 40. In my entire 40 years of living, our country had never been that racially divided.
Fluker: Let's talk about the research process of learning more about Uncle Nearest. It seems like you recruited quite a slew of people.
Weaver: The crazy part is I didn't recruit anyone. People just kept showing up. To this day, I have counted that I had 20 archivists, archeologists, genealogists, historians that all worked alongside me. Not a single person ever billed me. People were as drawn to the story as I was for the same reason. There was this level of hope in this story that said, we as Americans, Black and white, know how to fix this. We know how to do this right because these Jack and Uncle Nearest did it right.
Fluker: Let's go over the business receipts. Since you started around five years ago, Uncle Nearest has become the fastest-growing American Whiskey brand. It seems like there is a lasting impact in the public eye. And I think that is rooted in storytelling and the overarching brand story. Is that right?
Weaver: Yes! We are the most awarded bourbon and American whiskey. We're the most awarded of 2019, 2020, 2021—three years in a row. I am also the first Black person to own a significant spirit brand. We've brought together every level of excellence there is. So that's from storytelling. Storytelling and excellence are rooted in our distillery.
Fluker: Excellence is what you stress upon for the company values. And another thing you focus on is confidence. Speak a bit about that.
Weaver: Our number one company principle is that we do it with excellence or don't do it at all. If we're working on something and it's not working, we pivot. I think the ability to shift has to do with confidence. Everyone in my company knows our assignment is to build this company, this brand, and this distillery so big that the next generation can't screw it up.
Fluker: As a Black woman, entrepreneur, and CEO in this white and male-dominated industry, how do you think your counterparts receive you?
Weaver: I understand that those are the stats, but I don't know how I'm received. I came in like a wrecking ball, so I didn't look around to figure out how people looked at me. I still don't. What I'm not going to do is be concerned about how people on the outside view me. I have a mission. I have a vision. All I care about is doing that while I'm alive and how other people take it, it's not my responsibility to care, and I don't.
Fluker: What are you the proudest of right now? How would you describe yourself?
Weaver: I'm most proud of being able to do it and remaining authentically me. I've not lost myself. I am the same person I began as. First and foremost, I'm a spoiled wife of Keith Weaver. Fawn is a spoiled child of God. You know, I call it as it is. Second, I am a leader who only wants to lead those who want to be their authentic self and hold themselves accountable for their happiness and success. I am a leader trying to raise a new generation of confident and humble leaders.
Fluker: Share several words of encouragement or advice for the woman entrepreneur striving to make her own lane in business.
Weaver: Fail faster and harder, because if you are trying to play it safe, you're never going to reach any true dream that makes a difference for anybody else. Failure isn't failure unless you give up before you succeed. Strive to become someone more extraordinary than you were the day before. The best way to achieve today, is to figure out your gifts in the beginning. Because if you look at every person who is genuinely gifted, talented, and successful, what they're doing now, you can find in a direct line to what they were doing when they were five years old. It's just a matter of which one of us decided to stick to it.
