Whiskey CEO captivates packed ballroom
Fawn Weaver, CEO and founder of whiskey company Uncle Nearest, kicked off the national tour of her latest book, “Love and Whiskey: The Remarkable True Story of Jack Daniel, His Master Distiller Nearest Green, and the Improbable Rise of Uncle Nearest,” at a National Press Club Headliners event attended by a nearly 400-person, largely friendly crowd, June 18.
The packed pre-Juneteenth interview, dinner and whiskey tasting led by Master Blender Victoria Eady Butler was part rally, part pep talk, part business lecture and, at times, part sermon.
Club President Emily Wilkins asked Weaver about her rise from a rebellious kid who left home at 15 after frequent clashes with her ultra-religious parents, to the first woman and first African American to found and grow a billion-plus dollar whiskey company.
Weaver said she discovered, following a teenage self-imposed journey through homeless shelters, that she had the gift of hustle. A high school dropout, she said books became her teacher, not mentors. Criticizing mentorship she said that. “I learned through books…Mentorship can be a crutch.” She continued, “We gotta stop encouraging people to get mentors by the way. When people ask for mentorship, a lot of times what they’re asking is, you tell me how to do exactly what you did so that I can bypass the work. So, what I do is I send them a list of books that were most helpful to me. Once they have read them, I.e., done the work, then let’s have a conversation.”
Weaver then told Nearest Green’s story and how she convinced Green’s descendants to tell their story and how she launched the company.
Weaver said that Jack Daniel's parent company, Brown Forman, wasn’t a hundred percent behind the Uncle Nearest product and untold story idea. She said that half of the company backed her. She quickly added, “the other half wanted us dead. Like legit, dead.” She said that the relationship changed after she started doing interviews and showed them how their previously flat stock price skyrocketed.
Buying the distillery site and launching the company came with a big dose of sexism, Weaver said..
She emphasized the foundation role faith plays in her life. She said that while people who wanted her advice and counsel had the right to believe and wished everyone success, she had “nothing” for them if they were atheists.
Weaver was asked how people could invest in her company. Weaver stipulated that she wasn’t taking on any new investors and stressed that the company will never be for sale.
A fair way into the audience question session, the program broke for a raucously funny Uncle Nearest whiskey tasting led by Victoria Eady Butler, the first African American Master blender—and a descendant of Nearest Green.
Weaver, resuming her audience engagement, was quizzed about her new product ventures such as near market vodka, her intense interest in the mental health of America’s military and a headline-grabbing purchase of the oldest and largest Cognac property in the namesake area of France.
There is one trend she keeps up with and that’s artificial intelligence, she said. Weaver with a booming voice declared, “I love AI! And I think that it’s going to level the playing field for women and people of color. Because it allows for us to respond in a way that if you’re not afraid of it and we will use it. People who are entrenched and are entitled in their roles will not use it.”
Weaver particularly punched up the need to close financial disparities between whites and African Americans, “For African Americans I would like to see us own the land and pass it on to the next generation. We cannot decrease the wealth gap if we are not doing the two things that shrink it."