Uncle Nearest 1856 American 100 Proof

Caramel in colour with a beautiful deep golden hue. Baled hay and pumpkin seeds on the bouquet with subtle notes of ripe stone fruit and caramel corn. Bold and spicy upfront then mellows with sweet caramel and maple, like biting into an oatmeal raisin biscuit. The finish is long and rich. It lingers pleasantly sweet on the palate with notes of vanilla after the spice dissipates.

Nathan Green almost disappeared into history. Green was a slave on the property of a preacher and distiller named Dan Call—a man who, for many years, widely enjoyed credit for teaching a young Jack Daniel how to make whiskey. At least, that was the official story. Whiskey people, especially those in the orbit of Jack Daniel's distillery, knew the truth: It was Green, "Nearest" as he was nicknamed, who taught young Jack how to make what would become a best-selling whiskey. The story starts with Jack Daniel’s. Founded in the 1875, Jack Daniel’s has become the top selling American Whiskey in the world. And while many of us might think of their staple product as mass-produced low proof whiskey, the truth is there is a quite a bit of history behind the brand. That history, which was not well understood or well known until recently but was also not necessarily a secret, involved another man. Nearest Green (legal name Nathan Green, but no one including his family and friends, ever called him by his legal name; his name has been misspelled by some as "Nearis" was, it turns out, a black slave who taught Jack Daniel how to distil.