Nathan Nearest Green rose up from the inhumanity of slavery and lifted the spirits of Americans around the world.
Greene was a slave for several years before the Civil War, when he ran a farmhouse distillery in Lynchburg, Tennessee, for the pastor, slave owner, and grocer Dan Cole.
So a middle-aged African-American distiller taught Jack Daniel, a poor, hardworking and inquisitive Scots-Irish boy in his early teens, how to make whiskey in a barn still in the American backwoods.
The boy opened the Jack Daniel Distillery in 1866. He hired Green, who had just been freed a year earlier, as the distillery’s first master distiller.
“We believe there was a special bond between Jack and Nearest and Jack and Nearest’s family,” Jack Daniel’s historian Nelson Eddy told Fox News Digital.
Green’s descendants have worked at the distillery since it was founded, and still help make whiskey more than 150 years later.
Jack Daniel (center row, white hat, black vest) founded his eponymous distillery in 1866 after learning his craft from a slave, Nathan Nearest Green, who became his company’s first master distiller. There are no known photographs of Nearest Green, but his son George is seated to Daniel’s right (center photo). Members of the Green family have worked at Jack Daniel’s Distillery throughout its history, including Nearest Green’s two current descendants. (Courtesy of Jack Daniel’s Distillery)
Jack Daniel’s Tennessee Sour Mash Whiskey is the top-selling whiskey made in the United States and one of the most recognized spirits globally.
The Jack Daniel’s brand is so American and so distinctive that it should have its own marching band, cheers and football team.
“I think there was a special bond between Jack and Nearest.” — Jack Daniel’s historian Nelson Eddy
But some experts argue that the distinctive manufacturing process behind Jack Daniel’s, and Tennessee whiskey in general, involves techniques known from West Africa, where conquered tribesmen like Green’s ancestors were sold as slaves to Europeans who shipped them around the world.
Yes, Jack Daniel’s, like most things with deep American roots, has international influences.
The Old Jack Daniel’s Farm, near the Jack Daniel Whiskey Distillery. Company founder Jack Daniel established his first distillery in 1866. (Kyle Dean Reinford/Photo Alliance via Getty Images)
Green’s story has long been known to alcohol historians and has been told by Jack Daniel’s Distillery.
“This is a story of black and white people working together, and it boils down to a very simple, very human story,” Charles K. Cowdery, author of “Bourbon Straight: The Uncensored, Uncensored Story of American Whiskey,” told Fox News Digital.
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But green’s influence is now reaching a wider audience, thanks in large part to Nearest Green Distillery in Shelbyville, Tennessee, which has garnered critical acclaim for its product and plaudits for its dedication to whiskey history since opening in 2017.
“Nearest Green is arguably the godfather of Tennessee whiskey,” Nearest Green Distillery founder Fawn Weaver said in a 2019 interview with FOX Business.
Whisky Maker Uncle Nearest
Nathan Nearest Green was born in Maryland, probably Baltimore, around 1820. Little is known about his early life.
Jack Daniel’s company historian Nelson Eddy is speaking in the company’s founder Daniel’s former office on the Jack Daniel Distillery grounds. (Kyle Dean Reinford/Photo Alliance via Getty Images)
A more complete picture emerges in later years, when Greene begins to enjoy his emancipation after the Civil War.
“His friends and family called him Uncle Nearest,” according to an investigation by Nearest Green Distillery.
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“‘Uncle’ was a term used in Lynchburg at the time to show respect to both whites and blacks. Nearest was highly respected in Lynchburg as a leader and the best whiskey maker in the area.”
He seems to have lived a fulfilling life in freedom.
The 1880 census lists Green as 60 years old (listed as “Nealis” Green, which is likely a spelling mistake). It also shows that Green was married to Harriet, 40, and had nine children.
Several of his children worked at Jack Daniel’s Distillery in its early years.
“Nearest was highly respected in Lynchburg as a leader and the area’s finest whiskey maker.” — NearestGreen.com
He arrived at Dan Cole’s Lynchburg farm in the mid-1800s, where, among other duties, he was put in charge of running the farm’s distillery.
“It was natural work for slaves,” Cowdery said, reflecting on that period in American history. “It was dirty, hard and dangerous.”
According to the 1880 census, Jack Daniel’s distiller Nathan Nearest Green was married and had nine children, but is incorrectly listed as “Nearis” Green. (Courtesy of Jack Daniel’s Distillery)
Greene soon becomes mentor to the impoverished boy, and the relationship will change the destinies of two families and shape the future of the American spirit.
“He was the Nearest kind of worker.”
Jasper Newton “Jack” Daniel was born into freedom, but not comfort.
Details of his early life are also unclear. He was born in Lynchburg around 1848, the youngest of ten children.
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Daniel’s mother died within a few months of his birth.
He was about ten years old when he began working for Reverend Cole, and about fifteen when his father, who had served in the Confederate Army, died of pneumonia in 1863.
A sculpture in front of the cave where Jack Daniel’s whiskey flows pays tribute to the company’s founder, Jack Daniel. (Kyle Dean Reinford/Photo Alliance via Getty Images)
Jack Daniel was a teenage orphan.
According to NearestGreen.com, “He worked as a ranch hand for the farmer — milking the cows, feeding the pigs scraps, pumping water from the water trough and doing all the other tasks a farm worker does.”
The allure of a distillery piqued his interest, and with the approval of his landlord, Cole, he reportedly began working with Green.
“He wasn’t a privileged boy. He was a Nearest kind of worker.” — NearestGreen.com.
The poor white orphan boy and the enslaved middle-aged black distiller proved to be a dynamic duo by all accounts.
“He wasn’t a privileged boy; he was a worker, just like Nearest,” reports NearestGreen.com.
Green gave Daniel a masterclass on the intricacies of corn whiskey, a spirit made exclusively in America, made from sour mash, aged in charred oak barrels and filtered through charcoal.
That is Tennessee whiskey.
Jack Daniel’s whiskey is filtered with sugar maple charcoal made on-site, a technique Daniel learned from slave distiller Nathan Nearest Greene. Charcoal filtration is a technique believed to originate from traditional West African water purification methods. (Courtesy of Jack Daniel’s Distillery)
The processes for making it so smooth were all known by the 19th century, and in many cases were refined and perfected by enslaved distillers.
Corn-based sour mash whiskey aged in charred oak barrels is common to most American whiskeys.
Tennessee whiskey is unique primarily due to one process: charcoal filtration. The spirit is filtered through sugar maple charcoal before it is aged.
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“Many whiskey and food historians believe it was brought over by slaves, who were already using charcoal to filter water and purify food in West Africa,” reports NearestGreen.com.
Jack Daniel’s is the best-selling whiskey produced in the United States and is an American brand recognized worldwide. (Jakub Porzycki/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
Both Cowdery, the whiskey author, and Eddy, the company’s historian, dispute the African origins theory.
Either way, Tennessee whiskey requires a level of complex science and craftsmanship that was surprising in the 1800s, when it was essentially backwoods moonshine production.
“I consider Nearest to be Jack’s mentor. He was heavily influenced by Nearest in many ways.” — Nelson Eddy
According to Eddy, the distillery’s historian, Jack Daniel, for whom the spirit is named, learned everything from Nearest Green.
The two developed a relationship that went beyond that of mere colleagues.
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“I consider Nearest to be Jack’s mentor,” Eddie said. “There was clearly something bigger going on here. He was heavily influenced by Nearest in many ways.”
Green, who is known for playing the violin, reportedly ignited Daniel’s lifelong passion for music.
“Bigger than whiskey.”
Nathan Nearest Green died around 1890. His final resting place is unknown, and no photographs of him exist.
But his influence is still felt around the world.
Nathan Nearest Green was a slave who taught Jack Daniel how to make whiskey before the Civil War. Recently freed, he became the first master distiller at Jack Daniel’s Distillery when it opened in 1866. His family members have worked at the distillery since its early days, including, from left, Jerome Vance, Debbie Staples (recently retired) and Jackie Hardin. (Courtesy of Jack Daniel’s Distillery)
Jack Daniel’s charcoal-aged sour mash Tennessee Whiskey is a treasured symbol of American spirits-making excellence around the world.
Green’s influence was most clearly felt in Lynchburg, where Eddy said his family went on to become one of the largest landowners in the area.
“Without a member of the Green family working somewhere in the company, not a drop of Jack Daniel’s would be made.” — Charles K. Cowdery
Two of his descendants, Jerome Vance and Jackie Hardin, still work at the distillery.
Another, Debbie Staples, also recently retired.
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“Without a member of the Green family working somewhere in the company, not a drop of Jack Daniel’s would be made,” said whiskey historian Cowdery.
Lynchburg, USA, February 23, 2018: The old office next to the Jack Daniel Cave on the grounds of the Jack Daniel Distillery. (Photo by Kyle Dean Reinford/Picture Alliance via Getty Images)
Jack Daniel’s is currently owned by Brown-Forman, an international wine and spirits conglomerate that manages the logistics of global trade, distribution and marketing on a massive scale.
“It’s a really big company,” Cowdery said, “but at the Lynchburg distillery, it’s local people who have been working there for years. It’s a very family-like atmosphere.”
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The relationship between Green and Daniel, who made Tennessee Whiskey iconic, seems to have been forged by a common human bond: the struggles of orphans and slaves.
Jack Daniel’s is the best-selling American whiskey, and its namesake learned how to make Tennessee whiskey from Nearest Green, a slave-run distillery. (Getty Images/Courtesy of Jack Daniel’s Distillery)
“This story is bigger than whiskey,” Eddie said.
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“This is the story of two men, a distillery and the relationship between two families.”
To read other articles in Fox News Digital’s unique “Meet the American Who…” series, click here.
