The truth behind Jack Daniel’s whiskey has finally been revealed after 150 years and it was a slave behind the world-famous recipe
Apparently African distilling traditions are what makes the American whiskey so unique
TO mark the 150th anniversary of Jack Daniel's whiskey, the company has finally revealed the truth behind its famous recipe.
It was always believed that a preacher, grocer and distiller named Dan Call had taught his young apprentice, Jasper Newton 'Jack' Daniel how to run his whiskey still.
For years, the history of the American whiskey has been framed as a "lily-white affair", centred on German and Scots-Irish settlers who made the alcohol.
But now the Tennessee company says Jack Daniel didn’t learn distilling from him at all, but from a man named Nearis Green - one of Call’s slaves.
that this version of the story was never a secret but “is one that the distillery has only recently begun to embrace.”
“It’s taken something like the anniversary for us to start to talk about ourselves,” said Nelson Eddy, Jack Daniel’s in-house historian.
It is also reported that "enslaved men not only made up the bulk of the distilling labour 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.”
The Bourbon giant says it just wanted to set the record straight.
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According to a 1967 biography, Jack Daniel's Legacy, Call told his slave to teach Daniel everything he knew, quoting: "Uncle Nearest is the best whiskey maker that I know of."
Slavery ended with 13th Amendment in 1865 and Daniel opened his distillery a year later, employing two of Green’s sons.
A photo taken during the time shows a man possibly one of Green’s sons sitting with Daniel and his workers - a sharp contrast to photos from other distilleries, where black employees were made to stand in the back.
Michael Twitty, a food historian, said that Green would have probably “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.”
Fred Minnick, the author of Bourbon Curious: A Simple Tasting Guide for the Savvy Drinker, concluded: "It’s extremely sad that these slave distillers will never get the credit they deserve. We likely won’t ever even know their names."
Founded in 1866 by Jasper Newton "Jack" Daniel, America's oldest registered distillery produces every drop of Old No. 7 along with Gentleman Jack, Single Barrel, Tennessee Honey, and Tennessee Fire.
The Jack Daniel's family is sold in more than 165 countries and is still one of the most valuable brands in the world.