Uncle Nearest Whiskey - a podcast by Jai//Em

Quick Notes & Links:
 
We talk about whiskey and how a young woman built a brand around it using her creativity. It's a great example of how you can start a project, be open to that project changing and end up with something better than you imagined. We also check out the plant growing game for your phone called Viridi!

> Check out My Succulent Plants on the Viridi App
> Uncle Nearest 2016 New York Times Article
> Uncle Nearest 2017 New York Times Article
> Fawn Weaver Interview
> Nearest Green Foundation
> The Story of Nearest Green Narrated by Emmy-Award winning actor Jeffrey Wright
> Uncle Nearest Premium Whiskey Distillery

You can find us on Twitter and/or Instagram: @Creative4evr.

Don’t forget to be creative this week. Even if you just think about it. Later.

Full Show Notes:

Hey, hi and hello! Welcome to Creative4evr. The podcast dedicated to keeping you forever inspired, forever motivated, forever creative, and forever YOU.  I am your host, Janet, a.k.a. Jai//Em, a.k.a. the voice inside your head, a.k.a. your biggest fan, and together we’re going to get some creative shit done.

First let’s start with, Check It Out! This is a segment where I will bring up something that I’ve seen online, that I’ve read, that I’ve watched. Anything I think you should check out. We’re going to starting this off with a game for your phone. I am using the word game very loosely here, maybe I should say, an activity on your phone, for your commute to work, for down time, for those awkward moments where you are with people you don’t want to be with and you need a little phone business to take care. Try the game - Viridi.  It’s a succulent plant growing game. You get a pot and some succulents to plant and you water them and they grow. That’s it. Oh, and a snail crawls around the rim of you pot very slowly. The music is very mellow and soothing. It’s a calming game. And you just kinda check in on your plants every few days. It’s shows you the progress as they grow. Very low stakes game, very calming. I’ve linked some pics and a video in the show notes so you can see my plant, which I named Susie. I really like it a lot. It’s a good game or activity during those few minutes you have nothing to do and need something to do. Viridi. Grow some succulents with me.

Alright, for today’s show we’re going to talk about whiskey! And specifically how a young woman built a brand using her creativity. I think it’s a great example of how you can start a project, be open to that project changing and end up with something better than you imagined. So let’s jump in.

The story starts with a 2016 New York Times article about Jack Daniel, the famous whiskey maker. The writer, Clay Risen, pointed out that some 275,000 people visit the Jack Daniel whiskey distillery every year and when they do they hear the following story on the tour: “Sometime in the 1850s, when Daniel was a boy, he went to work for a preacher, grocer and distiller named Dan Call. The preacher was a busy man, and when he saw promise in young Jack, he taught him how to run his whiskey still — and the rest is history.”

The NYT article goes on to say that tourists will now hear a different story, a truer story. That Dan Call was not the person who taught Jack about distilling, instead it was one of Dan Call’s slaves— a man named Nearis Green.

This 2016 NYT article was enough to inspire a woman named Fawn Weaver, a black real-estate investor and author. She flew down to Lynchburg, Tennessee with the idea that this story could become a book, possibly a feature film, and maybe they could even do a limited run bottle of whiskey in honor of Mr. Green.  She interviewed as many people as she could during her visit. She also went on a few distillery tours and realized that Mr. Green was still not being officially recognized and incorporated into the tours as the NYT article had suggested was going to happen.

This is when Ms. Weaver decided to spend some more time in Lynchburg. She rented a place, continued her research and set her mind on making sure that the distillery kept its promise to add Mr. Green’s contribution to the history of whiskey.

  10,000 documents and artifacts later the first thing Fawn Weaver could tell everyone, including the distillery and the NYT, was that Mr. Green’s name was Nathan. The name “Nearis” was a nickname, often accompanied with “Uncle,” and it was spelled with a T. Nearest, like, where is the nearest Starbucks.

Not only did Ms. Weaver find out what the man’s actual name was, but she spoke to every descendant she could find and there were quite a few, many them over the age of 90. Through her interviews she discovered that in this small Tennessee town, black and white folks lived and worked together, ignored Jim Crow laws together, and had no problem with school integration because the kids in town already played together regardless of color. The family and community always knew that Nathan Green worked with Jack Daniel, but just how deep his contribution went slowly got lost over the 15 decades.

I am going to stop telling the story here because it’s better coming directly from Fawn Weaver’s mouth. I beg you to check out the interview I am pulling from about her first trip to Lynchburg, Tennessee. Link in the show notes. The people she met, the conversations, the misunderstandings…it’s a great read. That interview, along with the other links I will provide really help paint the picture of why Nathan Green and his whiskey legacy means so much to Fawn Weaver, and why she went from the idea of writing a book, to buying the house that Jack Daniel’s sisters built so she could live in Lynchburg, and open her own distillery. So I’ll link this interview, a video, and both stories— the New York Times article Ms. Weaver read in 2016 that inspired her to go to Tennessee, and the one the 2017 New York Times article written about her a year later when she came back with the Green family tree and stories and even confirmation of who the black man actually was in the photo the NYT put in their first article. Check out all the links. This is a great little rabbit hole to fall into.

Now, let’s talk about why I chose this topic. I wanted to do an episode about this because of the way Ms. Weaver approached this creative endeavor. It really speaks to me, it really inspires me. First she picked a project that she was truly passionate about. Reading an article about a man’s lost legacy moved her to the point that she took herself to a city named Lynchburg in Tennessee for her 40th birthday. You really have to care about something, be moved by something to do that. As a black person, as a woman, as the outsider of a small and remote community. She followed her creative gut and that is awesome.

Then when she got to Tennessee and discovered that there was so much more to the story, so much more that should be done, she was able to pivot and expand her creative goals. Not many creatives have the mental fortitude to go to city ready to write a book, and leave that city ready to open a whiskey distillery. And it wasn’t just talk, it wasn’t just her dream, she took steps and made it happen. No background in whiskey, but she made it happen. And I don’t know that she has a strong background in activism or politics, but I suspect it takes a fair amount of both of those skills to do be able respectfully honor a man that you’ve never met, that lived his life as a slave in Tennessee and happened to teach Jack Daniel how to make whiskey, in a country where Trump is currently president. There are so many ways that goes wrong. The optics have to be precise at all times, all sides have to work together, the Jack Daniel people, Nathan Green’s descendants, the city of Lynchburg. Think about this, 10,000 documents and artifacts were shared with Ms. Weaver in order to shine light on this history. That’s the level of trust and respect she had to earn for Mr. Green’s family and community in order to do this type of work. It’s incredible. And just so you know, the collection is going to be put in the National Museum of African American History and Culture in D.C. So, I will let you know the second that happens.

I wake up everyday hoping I can focus my talents as sharply as Ms. Weaver has done. Hoping to reveal to myself talents I didn’t know I had, and opportunities I didn’t think possible. I think there are other creative people out there that want their art to be as impactful as this. Whether they want to honor a fallen hero, bring a secret into light, or tell a story that wouldn’t otherwise be told. Stories like this light a fire for me. Not just a spark of light in the distance, that makes me optimistic about my creative future, but it also lights a find under my ass that says, Get to work, woman! Things are happening, people are getting shit done and you can too!

I’ll end with this… The Uncle Nearest Premium Whiskey Distillery is in Shelbyville, Tennessee, which is right in the same area as Lynchburg and you can go visit. They also have a fantastic website that goes into great detail about the history of Nathan Green and his family, many of which were also in the whiskey business. The highlight of the website is a short film narrated by Emmy-Award winning actor Jeffrey Wright. You know him from HBO’s Westworld, the Hunger Games movies, and if you are apart of my Q4 community, Angels in America. The short film honors Mr. Green and his legacy in a wonderful way and I don’t know if it was meant to serve as a sort of teaser of what the film or documentary could be, but I am on board. I will buy the book about Nathan Green, I will see the movie, whatever it is, as long as Ms. Weaver is involved, I am in.

In the meantime, I have settled for a bottle of Uncle Nearest whiskey. Now, I don’t drink whiskey, but I bought it, and I will continue to buy it. Fawn Weaver’s passion for this project, the brand she created, not for herself, but for someone else, the historical relevance, and activism, and Wakanda forever power behind it. That is the kind of creativity I live for and aspire to. I’ll say it again to myself and to you.  Get to work! Things are happening, people are getting shit done and you can too!

You can find us on Twitter and/or Instagram: @Creative4evr.

Don’t forget to be creative this week. Even if you just think about it. Later. 

Further episodes of Creative4evr Podcast

Further podcasts by Jai//Em

Website of Jai//Em