A weathered black and white group portrait hangs in the Lynchburg, Tennessee headquarters of the world’s most famous whiskey distillery. Taken around 1900, it’s a curious mix of overalled workers smudged with the day’s dirt and sharply dressed businessmen. But even more curious is a black face standing out from the crowd, seated immediately to the right hand of the man himself, Jack Daniel. That man is the son of Nearest Green, the formerly enslaved slave who made Jack Daniel’s Tennessee Whiskey a household name.

When a teenaged Jack decided he wanted to learn the local trade of whiskey distilling in the 1850s, local still owner Reverend Dan Call told Jack that his slave “Uncle Nearest is the best whiskey maker I know.” In addition to his duties operating the Call Still, Green was now tasked with teaching the youngster all the ins-and-outs of his craft.

Turns out, it was more than anyone could have anticipated. Green’s expertise and recipes were eventually used as the basis for the Lincoln County Process, the modern standard that qualifies a spirit as an authentic Tennessee Whiskey. He was also formally recognized as Jack Daniel’s Tennessee Whiskey’s first master distiller and the first documented black master distiller in the United States.

Near the end of the Civil War, Rev. Call sold his operation to Jack, but upon the ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment in 1865, the slaves of the Call Still were freed. As is expected, many wanted nothing to do with work they’d been forced into. But Uncle Nearest had a reputation to uphold, and had been such an integral part of the still’s local success that it wouldn’t have been the same without him. Jack immediately and officially employed Nearest as the (paid) master of the new Jack Daniel’s Distillery, where he crafted until the early 1880s.

But his legacy lived on. For seven straight generations, one of Nearest Green’s descendants has been continually employed within the Jack Daniel’s body of brands, and from his original process and recipe, Jack Daniel’s has grown to generate over $3 billion in revenues per year. The woman responsible for bringing Uncle Nearest’s past to light has created her own whiskey brand, Uncle Nearest 1856, the proceeds of which go to the Nearest Green Foundation providing for his descendants and preserving his heritage. The over 10,000 documents and artifacts collected on Green will be memorialized in an exhibit at the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture recognizing him as a key figure in the American whiskey-making tradition.

So the next time you raise a glass of Jack Daniel’s remember that you’re actually drinking to the House that Uncle Nearest Built, and consider making your next bottle of whiskey one with his name on it instead.

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