Eady Butler, Victoria
c. 1961-present · Contribution: 2019-present
Became the first known Black woman Master Blender in American whiskey, crafting Uncle Nearest Premium Whiskey as the great-great-granddaughter of Nathan “Nearest” Green, the formerly enslaved man who taught Jack Daniel to distill
Portraits are AI-generated interpretations, not photographs.
Impact on the world
After a 31-year career as an analytical manager for a regional organized-crime intelligence center, Eady Butler joined Uncle Nearest Premium Whiskey in 2019 to lead its scholarship foundation for descendants of her great-great-grandfather Nathan “Nearest” Green — and within months was asked to blend a batch of whiskey herself; that first blend sold out immediately and won international double-gold medals, leading to her promotion to Master Blender, making her the first known African American woman to hold that title in the U.S. whiskey industry. She was named Whisky Magazine's Master Blender of the Year in 2021 (the first woman to win) and again in 2022 (the first person ever to win back-to-back), and continues to direct the Nearest Green Foundation, which has funded scholarships for Green's descendants and raised millions for HBCUs through the brand's Old Fashioned Challenge.
Life & background
Raised in Lynchburg, Tennessee, by her grandmother Annie Bell Green Eady — Nathan Green's granddaughter — and aunt, while her mother and siblings lived nearby in Tullahoma, Eady Butler grew up hearing her grandmother's firsthand stories of how Green had mentored young Jack Daniel in whiskey-making. She became her segregated-era school's first African American homecoming queen in 1979, then earned a criminal justice degree from Middle Tennessee State University and spent 31 years as an analytical manager with the Regional Organized Crime Information Center in Nashville, part of the U.S. Department of Justice system. She met Uncle Nearest founder Fawn Weaver when Weaver arrived in Lynchburg researching Green's story, and joined the company in 2019 as she was preparing to retire from law enforcement; nine months later she was named Master Blender, a role she has described as something she “never had to be taught” because “it's in my blood.” She has been profiled by The New York Times, Food & Wine, and Wine Enthusiast, and named one of Imbibe Magazine's “75 People to Watch.”
Sources
- Wine Enthusiast; Master of Malt; ReserveBar; Whiskey University
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