# The Slave Who Taught Jack Daniels How To Make Whiskey



## Harina (Jun 27, 2016)

*Jack Daniel’s Embraces a Hidden Ingredient: *
*Help From a Slave

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/26/dining/jack-daniels-whiskey-nearis-green-slave.html?_r=0*


By CLAY RISENJUNE 25, 2016


Jack Daniel’s distillery here, and as they stroll through its brick buildings nestled in a tree-shaded hollow, they hear a story like this: 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.

This year is the 150th anniversary of Jack Daniel’s, and the distillery, home to one of the world’s best-selling whiskeys, is using the occasion to tell a different, more complicated tale. Daniel, the company now says, didn’t learn distilling from Dan Call, but from a man named Nearis Green — one of Call’s slaves.

This version of the story was never a secret, but it is one that the distillery has only recently begun to embrace, tentatively, in some of its tours, and in a social media and marketing campaign this summer.

“It’s taken something like the anniversary for us to start to talk about ourselves,” said Nelson Eddy, Jack Daniel’s in-house historian.

Frontier history is a gauzy and unreliable pursuit, and Nearis Green’s story — built on oral history and the thinnest of archival trails — may never be definitively proved. Still, the decision to tell it resonates far beyond this small city.

For years, the prevailing history of American whiskey has been framed as a lily-white affair, centered on German and Scots-Irish settlers who distilled their surplus grains into whiskey and sent it to far-off markets, eventually creating a $2.9 billion industry and a product equally beloved by Kentucky colonels and Brooklyn hipsters.

Left out of that account were men like Nearis Green. Slavery and whiskey, far from being two separate strands of Southern history, were inextricably entwined. Enslaved men not only made up the bulk of the distilling labor force, but they often played crucial skilled roles in the whiskey-making process. In the same way that white cookbook authors often appropriated recipes from their black cooks, white distillery owners took credit for the whiskey.

In deciding to talk about Green, Jack Daniel’s may be hoping to get ahead of a collision between the growing popularity of American whiskey among younger drinkers and a heightened awareness of the hidden racial politics behind America’s culinary heritage.

Photo





Claude Eady, far left, a retired distillery employee who is a descendant of Nearis Green, with Nelson Eddy, Jack Daniel’s in-house historian, at the distillery in Lynchburg, Tenn. CreditNathan Morgan for The New York Times
Some also see the move as a savvy marketing tactic. “When you look at the history of Jack Daniel’s, it’s gotten glossier over the years,” said Peter Krass, the author of “Blood and Whiskey: The Life and Times of Jack Daniel.” “In the 1980s, they aimed at yuppies. I could see them taking it to the next level, to millennials, who dig social justice issues.”

Jack Daniel’s says it simply wants to set the record straight. The Green story has been known to historians and locals for decades, even as the distillery officially ignored it.

According to a 1967 biography, “Jack Daniel’s Legacy,” by Ben A. Green (no relation to Nearis), Call told his slave to teach Daniel everything he knew. “Uncle Nearest is the best whiskey maker that I know of,” the book quotes Call as saying.

Slavery ended with ratification of the 13th Amendment in 1865, and Daniel opened his distillery a year later, employing two of Green’s sons. In a photo of Daniel and his workers taken in the late 19th century, a black man, possibly one of Green’s sons, sits at his immediate right — a sharp contrast to contemporaneous photos from other distilleries, where black employees were made to stand in the back rows.

But corporate history-keeping was a rare practice in those days, and over time memories of Green and his sons faded.

“I don’t think it was ever a conscious decision” to leave the Greens out of the company’s story, said Phil Epps, the global brand director for Jack Daniel’s at Brown-Forman, which has owned the distillery for 60 years. Still, it is unlikely that anyone in the Jim Crow South thought a whiskey marketed to whites should emphasize its black roots.

As the brand’s anniversary approached, the company started researching its various origin stories. It decided that the case for Nearis Green’s contribution was persuasive, and should be told. “As we dug into it, we realized it was something that we could be proud of,” Mr. Epps said.

A business built on slave help may not seem like a selling point, which may explain why Jack Daniel’s is taking things slowly. The Green story is an optional part of the distillery tour, left to the tour guide’s discretion, and the company is still considering whether it will flesh out the story in new displays at its visitors center.

Photo




Visitors to the Jack Daniel’s distillery, which is celebrating its 150th anniversary this year. Only recently has the company begun to embrace the story of Nearis Green. CreditNathan Morgan for The New York Times
However far the distillery decides to go, it is placing itself at the center of a larger issue that distillers and whiskey historians have begun to grapple with only in the last few years: the deep ties between slavery and whiskey.

“It’s about paying down the debts of pleasure that have accrued over time,” said John T. Edge, the director of the Southern Foodways Alliance at the University of Mississippi.

*Washington wasn’t the only president to use slaves in his distillery. In an 1805 advertisement, Andrew Jackson offered a bounty for a runaway slave named George, whom he identified as “a good distiller.”

Databases of ads for slave sales, as well as runaway slaves, are full of references to slaves as skilled whiskey distillers. In 1794, a Richmond, Va., man placed a $20 bounty on a slave named Will, who “has a large scar on his right side just below his ribs” and “understands making of whiskey.”

Slaves did more than just provide physical labor. If Green taught Daniel to distill, said Michael Twitty, a food historian, he probably would have drawn on generations of liquor-making skills: American slaves had their own traditions of alcohol production, going back to the corn beer and fruit spirits of West Africa, and many Africans made alcohol illicitly while in slavery.

“There’s something to be said for the fact that Africans and Europeans were both people in the Southeast who carried with them ancient traditions for making alcohol,” Mr. Twitty said.

Another aspect of the Jack Daniel’s tradition that is being reassessed is the so-called Lincoln County process, in which unaged whiskey is passed through several feet of maple charcoal, which removes impurities and imparts a slight sweetness.

According to legend, the process was invented in 1825 by a white Tennessean named Alfred Eaton. But Mr. Eddy, the Jack Daniel’s historian, and others now say it’s just as likely that the practice evolved from slave distilling traditions, in which charcoal helped remove some of the sting from illicitly made alcohol.

Other contributions are even harder to pin down. Though slave owners tended to value their slaves’ distilling prowess, they rarely documented how the slaves made such fine spirits.

Evidence often has to be found outside the archives. Recent archaeological work in Kentucky has uncovered material pointing to slave distilling at a number of sites, including the famed Pepper distillery near Frankfort and another operation owned by Jack Jouett, a Revolutionary War hero.

“It’s like looking at slave distillers out of the corner of your eye,” said Nicolas Laracuente, an archaeologist who has worked extensively at the site of Jouett’s house. “The reason we’re not finding them in the archives is that they didn’t have the right to be recognized.”

Photo




A re-creation of the grist mill and distillery at Mount Vernon, George Washington’s home in Virginia. Washington relied on six slaves to help run his rye whiskey distillery, one of the largest on the East Coast.CreditLexey Swall for The New York Times
Mike Veach, a whiskey historian, said the influence of enslaved African distillers may explain a mystery in the development of American whiskey. Traces of German, Scots-Irish and English distilling traditions are evident in the American style, but there’s much that can’t be traced to an earlier source — a gap that slave traditions might fill.

“I don’t know what role slaves would have played,” Mr. Veach said, “but I’m sure it was there.”

Fred Minnick, the author of “Bourbon Curious: A Simple Tasting Guide for the Savvy Drinker,” said it’s doubtful that a full accounting of enslaved people’s contribution to American whiskey will ever be written. “It’s extremely sad that these slave distillers will never get the credit they deserve,” he said. “We likely won’t ever even know their names.”

Despite the recent attention from Jack Daniel’s, Nearis Green’s name is just a faint echo, even among several of his descendants who live in the area. Claude Eady, 91, who worked for the distillery from 1946 to 1989, said he was related to Green “on my mother’s side,” but didn’t know much about him.

“I heard his name around,” he said. “The only thing I knew was that he helped Jack Daniel make whiskey.”
*


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## EssenceOfBeauty (Jun 27, 2016)

So now that they have publicly acknowledged Nearis Green and his immense contribution in helping them create their whiskey, are they offering any type of compensation to his descendants or financial contribution to the black community in his name?


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## larry3344 (Jun 27, 2016)

So sad.


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## Mlle.Noir (Jun 27, 2016)

They can't do anything on their own. They've always been stealing and getting all the credit while we're forever playing catch-up. Then they talk about "pulling yourselves up by the bootstraps" bs. Pay the man and his descendants.  While you're at it, give them ownership.


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## ladysaraii (Jun 27, 2016)

Harina said:


> *Fred Minnick, the author of “Bourbon Curious: A Simple Tasting Guide for the Savvy Drinker,” said it’s doubtful that a full accounting of enslaved people’s contribution to American whiskey will ever be written. “It’s extremely sad that these slave distillers will never get the credit they deserve,” he said. “We likely won’t ever even know their names.”
> *



This is the takeaway for me. And it goes beyond whiskey.


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## Dellas (Jun 27, 2016)

I honestly believe anything invented during slavery was not the invention of a white person alone or fully.

Blacks were the workers. Whites were the leisure class. By working daily on something you make connections and have light bulb moments... you become skilled. However, you didn't own your labor. America can't acknowledge that because that would mean a whole rewrite of history and make them look worse than Germans and make them owe money.

Light bulb...black man
American flag...black woman
Coke.....black woman...
Taught them blues,rock and roll, country music
Paula Dean recipes...black woman

We still have that today. Work for a tech company and discover something or invent something....you don't own anything. You are an employee.

This is why Prince spent most of his life on a one man protest. Didn't have his own name.

Capitalism is built on the slave model.


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## Dellas (Jun 27, 2016)

ladysaraii said:


> This is the takeaway for me. And it goes beyond whiskey.



Because you can't credit one person or family, you have to pay alls AA people. There should be No way another people come in this country and are doing better. Yes, we deserve free everything in this nation. We shouldn't have to pay one cent for anything.


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## hunnychile (Jun 27, 2016)

Interesting. Not surprising. 

I wonder how many other industries we would be a large part of if we were able to own our ideas and labor. All I could think of while reading this was this could've been a generational empire for black folks.


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## Bunnyhaslonghair (Jun 27, 2016)

If they are not dishing out any money then I don't want to hear about it. At least maybe this will open some closed eyes.


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## MizzKutieQ (Jun 27, 2016)

hunnychile said:


> Interesting. Not surprising.
> 
> I wonder how many other industries we would be a large part of if we were able to own our ideas and labor. All I could think of while reading this was this could've been a generational empire for black folks.



All of them! The only thing White people are responsible for creating is the patent office to steal from Blacks that were inventors and taxes.


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## yardyspice (Jun 27, 2016)

ZedianChic said:


> So now that they have publicly acknowledged Nearis Green and his immense contribution in helping them create their whiskey, are they offering any type of compensation to his descendants or financial contribution to the black community in his name?



That's why the acknowledgement is so tentative and halting. There is an enormous case for reparations for American blacks and I hope to see it happen in my lifetime. I doubt it'll happen for the Caribbean but AA's would set a trend.


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## OriginalBeauty (Jun 27, 2016)

ZedianChic said:


> So now that they have publicly acknowledged Nearis Green and his immense contribution in helping them create their whiskey, are they offering any type of compensation to his descendants or financial contribution to the black community in his name?



We already know the answer.


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## thatscuteright (Jun 27, 2016)

Adel10 said:


> I honestly believe anything invented during slavery was not the invention of a white person alone or fully.
> 
> Blacks were the workers. Whites were the leisure class. By working daily on something you make connections and have light bulb moments... you become skilled. However, you didn't own your labor. America can't acknowledge that because that would mean a whole rewrite of history and make them look worse than Germans and make them owe money.
> 
> ...



Thank you for this perspective.


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## thatscuteright (Jun 27, 2016)

yardyspice said:


> That's why the acknowledgement is so tentative and halting. There is an enormous case for reparations for American blacks and I hope to see it happen in my lifetime. I doubt it'll happen for the Caribbean but AA's would set a trend.



I wish it would make a huge difference in the Caribbean , since only 4% of the slaves came to America and the rest to South America and the Caribbean.


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## qchelle (Jun 27, 2016)

This made me angry to read. I don't understand why all AAs aren't ****ing millionaires smgdh. I'll be boycotting jack thieving, hiding behind history ass Daniel's until they state what they're doing in terms of financial compensation for Nearis' family smmfh.


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## Daernyris (Jun 27, 2016)

Who is surprised by this.......REALLY?  Our ancestors built the wealth for this country and made it a super power.  One day we will learn to keep our mouths shut and stop giving, for free, our genius.  I'm not speaking of Mr. Green, he was a slave and he had few options.   I give them nothing because I know what kind of grinning thieves they are.


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## larry3344 (Jun 27, 2016)

yardyspice said:


> That's why the acknowledgement is so tentative and halting. There is an enormous case for reparations for American blacks and I hope to see it happen in my lifetime. I doubt it'll happen for the Caribbean but AA's would set a trend.



It will happen...this is why aa need to be careful who they claim as black because it will come back and bite them in the arse later.

Learn from the natives with... the increasing amount of aa especially men who have kids with other ethnicities i can see this being the new hustle.

I dont even think african immigrants should get reparations only descendents of black american slaves.


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## okange76 (Jun 27, 2016)

We don't even need to go all the way back to slavery because AA  are still inventing things to this day and not being given credit publicly. I was floored when I found out that the Doctor who invented Lasik eye surgery is a black woman.  She has all the patents but she is not featured anywhere.  Another person who was shafted is the  black Engineer who invented the water gun. For yrs Hasbro toys made $$$$$$  from his inventions.  They just paid him over $70M last year after several years of fighting for royalties.  This is all within the last 20 yrs. You wouldn't know unless you perused black focused media. 

IMO for AA to get their reparations, they will have to unite and put together a solid blue print or game plan on how to go about it.  In addition, finding and exploiting the privileges of non black allies.  Unfortunately the AA experience is the most complex of all the POC in the US. The fights for rights and justice are so numerous that I don't know if people have anymore left in them.  Frankly I think AA are drowning in financial, emotional and psychological trauma from years of being abused by everyone including non-whites.


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## larry3344 (Jun 27, 2016)

okange76 said:


> We don't even need to go all the way back to slavery because AA  are still inventing things to this day and not being given credit publicly. I was floored when I found out that the Doctor who invented Lasik eye surgery is a black woman.  She has all the patents but she is not featured anywhere.  Another person who was shafted is the  black Engineer who invented the water gun. For yrs Hasbro toys made $$$$$$  from his inventions.  They just paid him over $70M last year after several years of fighting for royalties.  This is all within the last 20 yrs. You wouldn't know unless you perused black focused media.
> 
> IMO for AA to get their reparations, they will have to unite and put together a solid blue print or game plan on how to go about it.  In addition, finding and exploiting the privileges of non black allies.  Unfortunately the AA experience is the most complex of all the POC in the US. The fights for rights and justice are so numerous that I don't know if people have anymore left in them.  Frankly I think AA are drowning in financial, emotional and psychological trauma from years of being abused by everyone including non-whites.


Amen.


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## FelaShrine (Jun 27, 2016)

larry3344 said:


> I dont even think african immigrants should get reparations only descendents of black american slaves.



Only a fool would think otherwise.

anyway this story is depressing. and the whole "telling the story being at teh discretion of the tour guide" *** with that


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## RoundEyedGirl504 (Jun 27, 2016)

These YT folks will keep on winning.  Knowing how many of us are unable to trace our lineage as far as we would like, this man likely has descendents that could be getting together to sue the hell out of these people.  SMH.


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## Dellas (Jun 27, 2016)

RoundEyedGirl504 said:


> These YT folks will keep on winning.  Knowing how many of us are unable to trace our lineage as far as we would like, this man likely has descendents that could be getting together to sue the hell out of these people.  SMH.


Like the Mob ....no paper trail.


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## intellectualuva (Jun 27, 2016)

Adel10 said:


> Because you can't credit one person or family, you have to pay alls AA people. There should be No way another people come in this country and are doing better. Yes, we deserve free everything in this nation. *We shouldn't have to pay one cent for anything.*



This is what Patrice said in one of his bits.


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## DarkJoy (Jun 27, 2016)

I read his history some time ago. Made me want to go and beat somebody.

This is just upsetting. And we get nothing but Stereotyped as lazy, shiftless welfare recipients and criminals when we built this ****ing country. Im (and allthe rest of us im sure) so goddamn weary.


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## LdyKamz (Jun 27, 2016)

I didn't read the whole thing because I kept getting more and more upset. Something that stuck out was how they are advertising. They said in the 80s they were geared toward the yuppies and now they are after the millenials that are into social justice. Made me feel like they are finally coming out with the truth...to be trendy??? Am I misreading that? I mean this just pisses off. And of course I'm more angry that anyone would think that a white person created any damn thing in America. We built this country. What could they have created? Not a single thing.


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## luckiestdestiny (Jun 27, 2016)

larry3344 said:


> It will happen...this is why aa need to be careful who they claim as black because it will come back and bite them in the arse later.
> 
> Learn from the natives with... the increasing amount of aa especially men who have kids with other ethnicities i can see this being the new hustle.
> 
> *I dont even think african immigrants should get reparations only descendents of black american slaves*.


 
This makes sense. It's not like other indigenous people of various places are coming here and trying to get native American benefits.  Their blood and tears is why they deserved a piece of the pie.  And they are specific about why you qualify or don't for benefits.  It should be the same with AA.  All that was taken from us, all that we fought for, all that was created on our backs...is why those of AA descent deserve the reparations only. We have had our backs broken and nothing to help us. Even Affirmative action is for women (including white), all minorities, and other disenfranchized people. So it's not like the country made anything specifically for us because of slavery  (like they did for Native Americans and even Japanese in the interim camps and their descendents) and guess what also because of Jim Crow which affected my parents and so on (but they only want to harp on how slavery was so long ago and to let it go).  Nothing was provided to us and now with school to prison pipelines and other b.s, they are breaking our backs in other ways and keeping the playing field to their advantage. So yes I think the reparations should be for descendents of black american slaves and those descendents of Jim Crow era b.s.( which was not that long ago). Sure there should be other programs in place for immigrant groups, etc but that has nothing to do with reparations that should be rightfully ours.


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## aquajoyice (Jun 28, 2016)

It's so sad that they won't loosen their pathetic grip on letting the world know the true impact the slaves had on this country. There is no worse evil walking this planet than the people that continue to hide the truth.


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## Shula (Sep 30, 2019)




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## Reinventing21 (Sep 30, 2019)

People need to focus on what they can do and not what they cannot.  Like the post above, now that family created their own whiskey.  I hope everyone supports it.

Like Prince.  He did have his name.  Once he realized how much power he had signed over, he didn't just fade out.  He said, okay fine, for the rest of my contract (2 years I think) you guys will get these songs.  In the meantime, I am going to promote myself, my new creations etc., as this symbol until the contract ends.  He was a very clever, shrewd businessman who knew his value and talent.  Once the contract ended he went back to using his name (which he never really gave up) and took control over his work.  He also spent so much time trying to teach other artists how to protect their value, creations, works etc.

He did it and so can others.  It makes me sad when people just give up saying oh we will never be treated right, this will never happen, Blacks will never... etc.

Mexicans, specifically, used to be strongly stereotyped in white man's media as slow, stupid and drunk.  The Mexicans decided to work together to change that narrative to hardworking.

Asians, before being seen as the "model" minority used to be stereotyped as monkeys, stupid, eyes made fun of to show dimwittedness, and now, well you know the rest.

It's time for everyone to bring forth the hidden people, rewrite history, not just for Blacks, but for everyone.

This story should not be depressing, but looked as a chance to bring forth the accomplishments of so many others and demand the respect they should have received.


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## Transformer (Oct 1, 2019)

Shula said:


>



Yes it is named after him but Jack Daniels is still the manufacturer.  I have a bottle and the entire story is printed on it.


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## Reinventing21 (Oct 1, 2019)

Is the family getting some money though??!!   ^^^^


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## discodumpling (Oct 6, 2019)

The decendants of Nearis Green are featured and acknowledged in a Jack Daniel's commercial. Perhaps they got a little something from that and deals that the public isnt privy to.


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## Reinventing21 (Oct 6, 2019)

With all the money Jack Daniels has made, I am going to need them to do more than a 'lil somethin' for his fami!y.


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## ThirdEyeBeauty (Oct 7, 2019)

Dellas said:


> By working daily on something you make connections and have light bulb moments... you become skilled.


Exactly 

You try to find shortcuts to your work.  

Some people's shortcut is to take the ideas of others and claim 100% to the idea.


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