Jack Daniels Credits Beginnings to the Real Distiller: Slaves

Contrary to popular belief, slaves in the American South were instrumental to whiskey brewing in the country.

Jack Daniels truck in Tennessee. (Photo: iStock)

Jack Daniels recently turned 150 years old and secrets about its beginnings are pouring like whiskey out of barrels.

The popular story of how a young boy named Jack learned the art from a distiller may not be true: there’s another story doing the rounds. A slave might have helped brew what has become the iconic whiskey, according to a report in the New York Times.

Every year 275,000 people visit the Jack Daniels distillery, where they’re told how a boy named Jack went to work for a preacher and distiller named Dan Call.

Call was a busy man, but he saw promise in young Jack and taught him how to run his whiskey distillery– and the rest is history.

Now however, this tale is being swapped for a distinctly more sobering one. Apparently, it wasn’t the preacher, but one of his slaves named Nearis Green who taught Jack the art of distilling.

Jack the old timer. (Photo: iStock)

While this story was never a secret, it has only recently been embraced by the company in their tours and social media marketing campaigns.

For years, the history of American whiskey has been shrouded with stories of how it was introduced by German and Irish-settlers who distilled their excess grain to send to far off lands, which established the $2.9 billion industry.

Men like Green were forgotten by history because of America’s history of ideological whitewashing. The decision to finally credit Green is evidence of changing racial politics in America.

Jack Daniels said it was finally talking about the real history of the whiskey as it is known to the distillery and historians, to set the record straight.

Legally, slavery ended in America in 1865 and Daniel began his distillery the following year, employing two of Green’s sons.

Showcasing it as a brand built by slaves may not promote it in the best possible light, but it is heartening to see that Jack Daniels has decided, as a part of company policy, to pay tribute where it is due.