Author: Fawn Weaver
Reviewed by Chloe Fuksa
Did I intentionally choose to review a book about whiskey for the month of November, when there happens to be an election? Purely coincidental? You can take a guess. Love & Whiskey was written by entrepreneur Fawn Weaver and is the true story of her journey researching and honoring Nearest Green, the first Black master distiller in the United States.
Weaver first came across Green’s story in a newspaper article in 2016 and felt called to look into it more. Although Jack Daniel’s has become one of the most well-known whiskeys in the world, what Weaver helped bring to light is that Green, a former slave, was actually the one who taught Daniel the distilling process. Ultimately for Weaver, she decides that the best way to tell Green’s true story, to put his name in the history books where it belongs, is to create Uncle Nearest Whiskey and have it offered all across the country. It’s a tough battle for her independent brand to go up against the bigger names in distribution, but through her persistence, Weaver is able to make Uncle Nearest the fastest-growing Black-owned spirit brand of all time.
Now, this is not the history/biography book I was imagining. There is actually very little that Weaver is able to find about Green, and the information she does discover about his descendants and their town of Lynchburg, Tennessee, is presented pretty dully. However, the later parts of the book, where Weaver discusses the different aspects of launching and running the business, those parts are more interesting and read more quickly. While I am a bit disappointed in the book overall, it is wonderful that the name Nearest Green is finally being learned, and I can’t wait to try out a bottle for myself soon.
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