Weaver, Fawn

Impact on the world

After reading a 2016 New York Times article revealing that an enslaved man, Nathan “Nearest” Green, had taught Jack Daniel how to distill whiskey, Weaver assembled a team of roughly 20 historians, archivists, archaeologists, and genealogists to spend a year documenting Green's life, ultimately collecting more than 10,000 original documents; rather than only write a book, she purchased the Tennessee property where Green and Daniel had worked together and in 2017 launched Uncle Nearest Premium Whiskey, the first major spirits brand named for a Black American and, according to industry tracking, the fastest-growing and best-selling Black-owned spirits brand in U.S. history. She built a 323-acre, roughly $50 million distillery in Shelbyville, Tennessee, raised the brand to a reported $1.1 billion valuation by 2024, and founded the Nearest Green Foundation, which funds scholarships for Green's descendants, and the Uncle Nearest Venture Fund, which invests in minority-owned spirits businesses.

Life & background

Born Fawn Evette Wilson in 1976 in Pasadena, California, one of four daughters of former Motown songwriter and producer Frank Wilson and Philomina “Bunny” Wilson, Weaver founded her own public relations and special-events company, FEW Entertainment, by age 19 before working in hospitality and later becoming an author and serial entrepreneur. After visiting the Jack Daniel's distillery in 2016 and hearing no mention of Nearest Green on three separate tours, she traveled to Green's hometown of Lynchburg, Tennessee, to research his story directly with his descendants, who told her the best way to honor him would be to put his name on a bottle. She founded Grant Sidney, Inc., the parent company of Uncle Nearest, raised $40 million from investors by 2019 to fund the brand's own distillery, and in 2024 published the book “Love & Whiskey: The Remarkable True Story of Jack Daniel, His Master Distiller Nearest Green, and the Improbable Rise of Uncle Nearest.” She continues to serve as the company's CEO.

Sources

1. Whiskey University; The Root; TIME; History.com