Uncle Nearest + Jack Daniels Coffee

1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:05,760 Before we get started, we just want to let you know about a few ways you can support our Grassroots 2 00:00:05,760 --> 00:00:12,720 Indie Show. You can follow us on social media at No Bad Reviews Pod. We'd love it if you could go 3 00:00:12,720 --> 00:00:20,160 to your favorite podcasting app and rate us and review us. Also, please tell a friend about our 4 00:00:20,160 --> 00:00:28,480 podcast. And last, you can financially support us on patreon.com no bad reviews, buymeacoffee.com 5 00:00:28,480 --> 00:00:34,720 slash No Bad Reviews Pod. And you can buy merch at our website, nobadreviewspodcast.com. 6 00:00:34,720 --> 00:01:03,120 Thank you and enjoy this episode. Hello and welcome to No Bad Reviews colon 7 00:01:03,120 --> 00:01:08,640 a coffee podcast. This is a podcast where three friends, co-workers, and coffee industry 8 00:01:08,640 --> 00:01:15,680 professionals get together every other week and pretend like we're experts. I'm Jenny and I run 9 00:01:15,680 --> 00:01:23,520 the operations at a coffee company called Modest Coffee. I'm Marcus and I am your podcast attendant. 10 00:01:24,880 --> 00:01:31,360 Not the pilot, the attendant today for today's episode. Good. When people want drinks, they just 11 00:01:31,360 --> 00:01:36,320 need to ask you. Just flag you down as you're passing them by. Is there a button I could push 12 00:01:36,320 --> 00:01:43,280 to call you for a drink? I'll have to add that in in post. Look, you can just text Marcus at the 13 00:01:43,280 --> 00:01:47,200 Modest Coffee phone number and tell him when you want a drink and he'll bring it right over to your 14 00:01:47,200 --> 00:01:53,760 house. I'm Stephanie. I'm somehow the employee of the month at Modest Coffee even though I took 15 00:01:53,760 --> 00:01:59,040 three weeks off this month. Yeah. No, I'm the employee this month. I'm sorry. You think so? 16 00:01:59,040 --> 00:02:04,640 Yeah. I thought Steph earned it just for showing up. I mean, I came back. You haven't come back yet. 17 00:02:05,680 --> 00:02:11,680 You're still gone. I'll be there Monday. Will you? I don't know. We'll see how you treat me today. 18 00:02:11,680 --> 00:02:15,760 You're here at the end of the month. I think you still like, that's your department. Sorry, 19 00:02:15,760 --> 00:02:19,040 I'm still feeling. I think you still get to decide. Steph, I'm sorry I'm still a little 20 00:02:19,040 --> 00:02:24,880 resentful. Not at you, just at my life. And you just happen to be the one I'm directing it at. 21 00:02:24,880 --> 00:02:30,000 When you're the only employee sometimes. Sometimes you take the brunt of things. 22 00:02:30,000 --> 00:02:34,000 I have to keep reminding myself, friends first. Friends first, Jenny. 23 00:02:35,600 --> 00:02:38,800 All right, let's get into this because we got to go to my mom's house. 24 00:02:38,800 --> 00:02:44,000 Birthdays, celebrations. Happy Fourth of July. Yeah. Well, first I want to just do a quick 25 00:02:44,000 --> 00:02:48,000 clarification. I know that we're not trying to do long clarifications, but just a quick one on the 26 00:02:48,000 --> 00:02:57,040 Snoop Dogg episode. Our friend Brian basically says that Eazy motherfucking E is dead. He passed 27 00:02:57,040 --> 00:03:01,440 away of AIDS in 96. So he's been dead a while and it wasn't Suge Knight that we know of. 28 00:03:03,280 --> 00:03:08,000 I thought there was anything wrong with that. I feel bad that we were joking about Eazy E 29 00:03:08,000 --> 00:03:13,360 without realizing that he was dead. Sorry. Yeah. All right. R-I-P-E-Z-E. Yes. 30 00:03:13,360 --> 00:03:19,600 I loved all those letters. Thanks, Brian, for reaching out and letting us know. That was great. 31 00:03:19,600 --> 00:03:26,640 Yeah. So today's episode, this is the Jack Daniels nearest green story, which is really interesting. 32 00:03:26,640 --> 00:03:33,680 I'm excited. You know, I mean, nothing says Merica like Tennessee whiskey and slavery. 33 00:03:33,680 --> 00:03:42,000 Oh, that encapsulates a lot of American history. So the only reason why we even really know this 34 00:03:42,000 --> 00:03:50,000 story of Jack Daniels and nearest green is this woman, Fawn Weaver. She owns the Uncle nearest 35 00:03:50,640 --> 00:03:56,480 whiskey company now, and she's an author and she kind of uncovered all of this history. 36 00:03:56,480 --> 00:04:02,640 Nearest green is the one who actually taught Jack Daniels how to distill whiskey. And then Jack 37 00:04:02,640 --> 00:04:08,000 Daniels became this big, huge company. So nearest green uncle nearest was kind of written out of 38 00:04:08,000 --> 00:04:17,200 the story. The history of Jack Daniels. Right. But not, he wasn't, it wasn't like he was written out 39 00:04:17,200 --> 00:04:22,400 from the beginning. He actually wasn't written out until much later in Jack Daniels history in 1969. 40 00:04:24,400 --> 00:04:30,960 The Jack Daniels company was owned, was family owned until 1956. And then in 1956, it was bought 41 00:04:30,960 --> 00:04:36,400 out by Brown Foreman. I don't know if you've ever heard of it. It's a huge, giant global company. 42 00:04:36,400 --> 00:04:41,360 I don't know if it was at the time, but maybe it was, I guess, actually all of the major whiskey 43 00:04:41,360 --> 00:04:48,640 brands in the United States are owned by just five gigantic, multi global corporations. So yeah, 44 00:04:48,640 --> 00:04:55,840 it was bought by this giant company in 1956. And then in 1969 is when he was kind of written out of 45 00:04:55,840 --> 00:05:02,000 the history. And so I don't think it was like an overtly racist decision, but I think it was like, 46 00:05:02,000 --> 00:05:07,520 how do we want to market ourselves? Subtly racist. Subtly racist because they're like, 47 00:05:07,520 --> 00:05:12,080 how do we want to market ourselves? They knew who their target was Southern white men, and they just 48 00:05:12,080 --> 00:05:17,680 wanted to lean into that. And so they kind of just wrote nearest green out of the history. 49 00:05:18,400 --> 00:05:25,760 And so for the 150th anniversary of Jack Daniels, Jack Daniels was 2015. So this is way before 50 00:05:25,760 --> 00:05:29,760 everything that's happened more recently. They wanted to embrace their history, 51 00:05:29,760 --> 00:05:36,640 embrace their diversity of their history. And so they decided to bring nearest green back into 52 00:05:36,640 --> 00:05:42,560 their story. Like a character. Well, not so just, I mean, it's like, oh, we've got this history 53 00:05:42,560 --> 00:05:50,640 that we wrote out. And now we want to capitalize on it feels a little bit like, so we have, we've got, 54 00:05:51,680 --> 00:05:56,160 you know, you know what I'm saying? It feels, it doesn't feel genuine to then to be like, 55 00:05:56,160 --> 00:06:02,080 this is our history. I don't know. I think that my from reading on the Jack Daniels website, 56 00:06:02,080 --> 00:06:07,440 and from listening to Fawn Weaver, and from just through this research, it didn't seem like it was 57 00:06:07,440 --> 00:06:12,080 something nefarious. It seemed like they were really just trying to be. I mean, I mean, it could 58 00:06:12,080 --> 00:06:16,640 have been a marketing there. But I don't think that these, maybe they're sitting in a boardroom, 59 00:06:16,640 --> 00:06:21,680 like we need to attract more liberals and black people. Maybe I don't know. But it seemed like 60 00:06:21,680 --> 00:06:27,840 you saying that they did a big company did the right thing. I mean, for the right reason. 61 00:06:29,680 --> 00:06:33,280 I can't say why they did it because they didn't find the exact reasoning, but they went through 62 00:06:33,280 --> 00:06:39,920 a lot of effort. And they actually got a lot of blowback for doing this, which is really interesting. 63 00:06:40,800 --> 00:06:47,200 If anything, it may be hurt them to release this information. So 2015 150th anniversary of Jack 64 00:06:47,200 --> 00:06:52,480 Daniels, the publicist reaches out to a New York Times reporter, somebody who's super into this 65 00:06:52,480 --> 00:06:57,520 guy who's super into whiskey, Clay Risen. So they reach out to this guy, Clay Risen, and they're 66 00:06:57,520 --> 00:07:02,720 like, Hey, we have this story we would like to put out. And so Clay does some research, but you know, 67 00:07:02,720 --> 00:07:07,600 he's a reporter, he's got deadlines, he's got to get these stories out, he can't do a complete 68 00:07:07,600 --> 00:07:14,000 investigative story. So he kind of just talks like high level about nearest and about whiskey and 69 00:07:14,000 --> 00:07:19,520 about the history of the Jack Daniels company brings near screen back into this story. And then 70 00:07:19,520 --> 00:07:25,200 Fawn Weaver, she was writing a book about happy marriage, the secrets to happy marriages. So she's 71 00:07:25,840 --> 00:07:30,480 traveling globally interviewing people who've been married for 25 years or more, the happiest 72 00:07:30,480 --> 00:07:34,400 couples that have been married for 25 years or more, which I think is a really cute premise, 73 00:07:34,400 --> 00:07:39,520 because she's got this great relationship with her husband, she started a blog, her blog was really 74 00:07:39,520 --> 00:07:44,240 successful, she started this like online community. And then you know, she was approached to write a 75 00:07:44,240 --> 00:07:49,840 book. So she's in Singapore, and she happens to get a copy of the New York Times. And she sees 76 00:07:49,840 --> 00:07:55,360 this headline, which is, you know, a story, but what really, like, caught her attention was in the 77 00:07:55,360 --> 00:08:03,360 middle of the photo from the early 1900s is a black man sitting right next to Jack Daniel. 78 00:08:03,360 --> 00:08:11,600 And she's like, Wow, this is really striking that this is the south small town Tennessee. 79 00:08:12,640 --> 00:08:18,080 There's this black man featured so prominently in the middle of the photograph of all the with 80 00:08:18,080 --> 00:08:22,480 these other employees right next to Jack Daniels. She's like, I have to know who this black man is 81 00:08:22,480 --> 00:08:27,440 and I have to know more about it. And the black man in that photo was George Green, the son of 82 00:08:27,440 --> 00:08:32,960 nearest green. And so this kind of just piqued her interest. And she kind of obsessively started 83 00:08:32,960 --> 00:08:37,120 researching and she's like, I have to know more. So she goes to her husband, she says, I'd love to 84 00:08:37,120 --> 00:08:42,160 travel to Lynchburg, Tennessee. And he's like, Fuck no, I'm never going to their black couple. 85 00:08:42,160 --> 00:08:46,960 I was like, Fuck no, I'm not going to a town named Lynchburg, Tennessee, right? Black couple from 86 00:08:46,960 --> 00:08:53,360 tenant from California raised born and raised in California. So for her 40th birthday, she's like, 87 00:08:53,360 --> 00:09:00,720 Hey, I really love to do this thing for my 40th birthday. And so they travel to Lynchburg, Tennessee, 88 00:09:00,720 --> 00:09:06,720 so she could just start learning some more. And she ends up buying the farm while they're there. 89 00:09:06,720 --> 00:09:11,360 That's a nice birthday present. So this is where we are now. Fawn Weaver is in Lynchburg, 90 00:09:11,360 --> 00:09:17,040 we're nearest green and Jack Daniels started determined to find out more and buys a farm. 91 00:09:17,040 --> 00:09:22,960 I'd like to say her husband is an executive at Sony Pictures. Are they still happily married 92 00:09:22,960 --> 00:09:27,600 after she did all this? They are still actually very happily married. He's like on the board for 93 00:09:27,600 --> 00:09:32,320 nearest green. Okay, yeah, they're great. Look them up on LinkedIn. I did. Nice. You know how I spy. 94 00:09:33,120 --> 00:09:40,640 And I just want to say that Fawn's research was conducted over multiple years involving 2500 95 00:09:40,640 --> 00:09:48,000 historians, archaeologists, people, records keepers going through library and across the United 96 00:09:48,000 --> 00:09:54,240 States, multiple states of records. So she really worked hard to compile all of this information and 97 00:09:54,240 --> 00:10:01,600 to verify the accounts of this story. So back in the day, Jack Daniel, he was born. Did you guys 98 00:10:01,600 --> 00:10:06,880 know that? He was born. He's the descendants of Scottish and Welch family members like his 99 00:10:06,880 --> 00:10:13,680 grandparents had come over, settled in Tennessee. From a strong distilling family. I think it's in 100 00:10:13,680 --> 00:10:19,760 his blood. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, he didn't know it, but it was in his blood. Sure. And so his 101 00:10:19,760 --> 00:10:26,000 mother actually died shortly after she gave birth to him, but his dad ended up remarrying this like 102 00:10:26,000 --> 00:10:34,160 terrible woman that Jack hated. So when Jack was a wee young lad, I mean 1955, he went over to... 103 00:10:34,160 --> 00:10:39,440 So what would he have been? Seven at most. Nineteen fifty-five? Eighteen fifty-five. So this is why the 104 00:10:39,440 --> 00:10:45,040 150th anniversary, this is where they consider the start. At this neighboring farm, there was 105 00:10:45,040 --> 00:10:51,840 this guy named Dan Call. He was a pastor and a distiller. He had a huge like 300 acre farm 106 00:10:51,840 --> 00:10:57,520 right outside of Lynchburg, Tennessee. And on one side was his church and all the way on the other 107 00:10:57,520 --> 00:11:01,760 side where he couldn't see it was the distillery. And then he kind of lived in the middle, like 108 00:11:01,760 --> 00:11:08,160 between the two. So he kind of had these two sides of his life completely separate. Wow. Yeah. 109 00:11:08,160 --> 00:11:13,200 Good and evil. Right, exactly. And he's like, well, one doesn't exist if I can't see it. 110 00:11:13,200 --> 00:11:18,720 But so on this farm, he was not a slave owner. I don't know if that was out of religious reasons 111 00:11:18,720 --> 00:11:23,040 or if it was post-Civil War. It was pre, it was nineteen fifty or eighteen fifty-five. 112 00:11:23,680 --> 00:11:28,720 Oh, it was the eighteen sixties, right? It was the Civil War. Yeah, that ended like eighteen sixty-five, 113 00:11:28,720 --> 00:11:33,040 I think, eighteen sixty-seven. I can't remember. Somebody, myself, I should go back and listen to 114 00:11:33,040 --> 00:11:38,160 the Juneteenth episode. If anybody's curious, go back a year. We've got an episode for you. 115 00:11:38,160 --> 00:11:43,440 So anyways, still slavery times. Some say it could have been because when you own slaves, you have 116 00:11:43,440 --> 00:11:48,560 to pay taxes on them because they're technically property. Oh, interesting. Yeah, so fucked up. 117 00:11:48,560 --> 00:11:52,560 So we don't know. He could have been a pastor and morally against owning slaves. It could have been 118 00:11:52,560 --> 00:11:58,320 a financial decision, but he did rent slaves to help in his distillery. So he would rent them from 119 00:11:58,320 --> 00:12:07,040 a neighboring slave owner. Okay. So kind of like a borrow, can I borrow your tool? Yes. I didn't know 120 00:12:07,040 --> 00:12:11,760 that was a thing. In a terrible way. Wow. Isn't it terrible? I mean, I guess it makes sense, but yeah, 121 00:12:11,760 --> 00:12:18,000 it's awful. Let me rent your, yeah, like a tool that's terrible. Hey, you're not using them. 122 00:12:18,000 --> 00:12:23,920 They're just standing around. Fuck. I know, right? Horrible. I know. Crazy. Well, and the fucked up 123 00:12:23,920 --> 00:12:29,280 thing is he's like, he's still got to pay for it. Pay for like the use of that person's work. So 124 00:12:29,280 --> 00:12:35,040 it's like, why not? Anyways, whatever. Whatever. This is, you know, we have to think this is a 125 00:12:35,040 --> 00:12:42,800 different time. It's not right, but it is what it is. And so nearest was the slave that he rented 126 00:12:42,800 --> 00:12:47,200 from this local guy. Local guy's last name was green. That's how nearest got the last name green. 127 00:12:48,560 --> 00:12:54,800 And nearest somehow was a master distiller. He was so good at it. So this guy, Dan call just had 128 00:12:54,800 --> 00:13:02,640 nearest basically living on his farm and doing all the distilling. And so Jack Daniel comes over as a 129 00:13:02,640 --> 00:13:10,000 wee young lad and just moved on to Dan calls farm and also works in the five is working on the farm 130 00:13:10,000 --> 00:13:15,840 finds he is super fascinated by the distillery. So Dan lets him be nearest greens assistant. 131 00:13:15,840 --> 00:13:22,880 Wow. Yeah. And so nearest green and Jack Daniel and whatever slaves are on the farm doing all the 132 00:13:22,880 --> 00:13:27,600 distilling all work side by side. So Jack Daniel's was, or Jack Daniel was basically 133 00:13:27,600 --> 00:13:32,320 working just as the slaves beside him where he also wasn't getting paid. He was getting room and 134 00:13:32,320 --> 00:13:40,080 board just to live there. So little though. I know. Isn't that crazy? So he was essentially raised by 135 00:13:40,080 --> 00:13:46,400 nearest green. Oh, that's really interesting. Yeah. So like the, so going back to the things that 136 00:13:46,400 --> 00:13:51,040 people were saying after this New York Times article, like Jack Daniel wasn't even old enough 137 00:13:51,040 --> 00:13:56,240 to own slaves while slavery was even a thing. So that's like impossible. 138 00:13:56,240 --> 00:14:03,600 And he, you know, he, I think nearest was more like a father figure to him because nearest was born in 139 00:14:03,600 --> 00:14:09,040 1820. So he was, you know, a much older guy, maybe around, you know, what would that be? 140 00:14:09,680 --> 00:14:19,440 2030s in his 30s. 31. Jack was born. Yeah. Yeah. So, so 35. Yeah, exactly. So yeah. So 141 00:14:19,440 --> 00:14:23,680 Jack's working side by side with nearest. He really respects him. He really looks up to him. 142 00:14:23,680 --> 00:14:28,720 He's super fascinated with the distilling. He's now grown up with distilling, you know, then we have 143 00:14:28,720 --> 00:14:37,760 the civil war that all happened. I guess the distillery was selling or giving spirits away to 144 00:14:37,760 --> 00:14:45,520 the soldiers and everything else. Civil war ends. Slavery is now over. Nearest is now a free man. 145 00:14:45,520 --> 00:14:51,200 Dan called the pastor, his wife, I guess she was not like cool with drinking. She was one of those 146 00:14:51,200 --> 00:14:56,000 early prohibitionists. So she's like, Hey, look, you got to choose between me and the church or 147 00:14:56,000 --> 00:15:01,040 your distillery because like, I don't want to put up with this anymore. So he chose the church and 148 00:15:01,040 --> 00:15:06,800 his wife and he sold the distillery to Jack Daniel. Now where did Jack Daniel get any money? 149 00:15:08,000 --> 00:15:11,840 No idea. Maybe it was a rent to own type thing. It could be like a rent to own. I didn't really 150 00:15:11,840 --> 00:15:16,240 find that information. They just said maybe he was getting a small stipend while he was working on 151 00:15:16,240 --> 00:15:20,640 the farm. It could have been. I mean, I know he like moved away from his dad, but maybe there 152 00:15:20,640 --> 00:15:27,280 was family money that he had access to also. It's a possibility. I think it was my opinion. It was 153 00:15:27,280 --> 00:15:32,800 probably more of a rent to own sort of situation. Hey, you pay me this much and then over time and 154 00:15:33,360 --> 00:15:37,760 and then it's yours. Yeah, exactly. Cause you figure this Dan call was also like a pretty nice 155 00:15:37,760 --> 00:15:42,400 guy to them as well. And that type of financing arrangement was not uncommon back in the day 156 00:15:42,400 --> 00:15:46,400 either, even now to a certain extent. Plus you figured Dan call, I mean, he probably still was 157 00:15:46,400 --> 00:15:51,600 into the distilling. He's still living on the property. Like nothing has changed except for 158 00:15:51,600 --> 00:15:57,360 like Dan calls not making the money on the distilling anymore. Well, he is of Jack's 159 00:15:57,360 --> 00:16:04,000 paying and still so like nothing changes except his wife has been calmed down about it. Exactly. 160 00:16:05,440 --> 00:16:08,960 Well, and then I guess you figure Jack Daniel though is now the one calling the shots. 161 00:16:08,960 --> 00:16:13,920 And so the first thing he does is he puts near screen on the payroll as the head distiller and 162 00:16:13,920 --> 00:16:19,600 they basically just work together until 1881 when Jack, I guess now fully owns the distillery and 163 00:16:19,600 --> 00:16:24,560 has saved up enough money to move into a bigger location off of this farm, but nearby still. 164 00:16:24,560 --> 00:16:31,520 And at this time nearest is like ready to retire, but nearest three sons go to the new location 165 00:16:31,520 --> 00:16:37,280 and are like the master distillers now with Jack Daniel and like still working for the company. 166 00:16:37,280 --> 00:16:41,120 And in fact, the grandchildren ended up working for the Jack Daniel company as well. 167 00:16:41,120 --> 00:16:48,160 Wow. Holy shit. The families were so close throughout generations. 168 00:16:48,160 --> 00:16:53,760 They, the kids grew up together playing together. They would still have family dinners together, 169 00:16:53,760 --> 00:16:58,080 you know, like Sunday dinner, the whole two families would still get together and eat around 170 00:16:58,080 --> 00:17:03,680 the same table. And in fact, when Fawn went to Lynchburg, all these generations are still there. 171 00:17:03,680 --> 00:17:09,120 Jack Daniel's descendants are still in Lynchburg, nearest greens descendants are still in Lynchburg. 172 00:17:09,120 --> 00:17:15,680 And so she met with one of Jack's descendants. And at first she was kind of wary of Fawn and 173 00:17:15,680 --> 00:17:21,520 what she was up to, you know, woman writing a book from California and all of this media storm 174 00:17:21,520 --> 00:17:25,920 against them. And so when Fawn was like, no, I think there's actually like a really beautiful 175 00:17:25,920 --> 00:17:30,640 story here that I would love to tell. She was like, all right, pulls out her phone, 176 00:17:30,640 --> 00:17:36,320 gives Fawn an entire list of nearest descendants, names and numbers straight from her cell phone. 177 00:17:36,320 --> 00:17:43,280 Oh my God. So even 150 years later, these families are still so close and in regular contact that 178 00:17:43,280 --> 00:17:47,280 they're like in each other's phones. That's just how it is in small town Tennessee though, too. 179 00:17:47,280 --> 00:17:51,680 They all know each other. Everybody knows each other, but like this lack of racism and this 180 00:17:51,680 --> 00:17:56,080 mutual love and respect for each other is really, I think, a special thing. I think it's a special 181 00:17:56,080 --> 00:18:03,280 thing to find between anybody, between any two people. And so I guess the Jack Daniel company, 182 00:18:03,280 --> 00:18:08,160 the distillery Jack Daniel himself really took care of nearest. He retired a rich man. He was 183 00:18:08,160 --> 00:18:12,800 one of the wealth, nearest green was one of the wealthiest men in Lynchburg of anybody, 184 00:18:12,800 --> 00:18:18,240 black or white. Wow. His sons were extremely wealthy from working with the Jack Daniel company, 185 00:18:19,360 --> 00:18:24,160 generations of wealth throughout their family. This is an amazing story. This is like really 186 00:18:24,160 --> 00:18:29,760 shocking. I know. I'm kind of tearing up a little too. I know. It's like the, this special story 187 00:18:29,760 --> 00:18:35,760 that you never expect to hear. Yeah. Their family is just like really well respected. 188 00:18:35,760 --> 00:18:42,640 They're a very prominent family, very involved in the community and accepted and well liked at a 189 00:18:42,640 --> 00:18:47,760 time when there was segregation in schools still. And in fact, one thing I was listening to when 190 00:18:47,760 --> 00:18:53,280 the schools segregated, I guess Fawn asked one of nearest or Jack Daniel, one of the descendants, 191 00:18:53,280 --> 00:18:57,840 like, what was that like when the schools integrated? And then, you know, just tell me 192 00:18:57,840 --> 00:19:02,400 about that. And she's like, well, our kids were all still playing together outside before school, 193 00:19:02,400 --> 00:19:06,400 after school, weekends. Now they could play together at school during the day. She was like, 194 00:19:06,400 --> 00:19:12,720 it was great. Yeah, that's great. So, so tell me about the uncle nearest company. So it's, 195 00:19:12,720 --> 00:19:17,440 it's this writer lady, she buys the farm and then does she, I thought, I thought it was 196 00:19:17,440 --> 00:19:22,880 owned by a descendant. Is this writer lady a descendant too? No. Okay. No, the writer lady 197 00:19:22,880 --> 00:19:29,600 is not a descendant. Did she like poach a distiller from the family? Well, so one of Jack's 198 00:19:29,600 --> 00:19:34,000 descendants, so Jack actually never had any children. So the company passed on to his nephew. 199 00:19:34,880 --> 00:19:40,720 And so it was all like nephews and cousins and people, they went through this other line of 200 00:19:40,720 --> 00:19:45,040 descendants. So none of these people are like Jack's great grandchildren, but they're like his great 201 00:19:45,040 --> 00:19:51,600 nieces and great nephews. One of his great nieces became the head of distilling and the master 202 00:19:51,600 --> 00:19:56,880 distiller at Jack Daniel's, even after Brown Foreman bought it. She did that for like, 203 00:19:56,880 --> 00:20:04,960 or like 30 years. She was the head until not that long ago. And so when Fawn goes to Lynchburg to 204 00:20:04,960 --> 00:20:09,280 really learn the story of nearest green, cause it's, she shows up, she shows up at a library 205 00:20:10,160 --> 00:20:16,240 and she's trying to like do some research. But despite the fact that the green family was so 206 00:20:16,240 --> 00:20:21,280 prominent, there was still very little information on nearest himself. So she doesn't immediately 207 00:20:21,280 --> 00:20:25,680 find any materials at the, at the library. The librarian calls the director and is like, 208 00:20:25,680 --> 00:20:31,280 Hey, I've got this woman from California here. Can you help? And so he's like, Oh yeah, let me 209 00:20:31,280 --> 00:20:37,120 go and get this woman, one of Jack's descendants. And so he calls her and she comes, this is the 210 00:20:37,120 --> 00:20:43,440 one who gave her all of nearest family members information. So she shows up about two hours later. 211 00:20:43,440 --> 00:20:47,280 So she's in town. She's just gotten all this information. She's kind of formulating her plan. 212 00:20:47,280 --> 00:20:51,680 Like, how do I want to approach this information? What am I going to do next? So this real estate 213 00:20:51,680 --> 00:20:57,920 agent, Sherry Moore calls up Fawn and is like, Hey, I just talked to my cousin. This property 214 00:20:57,920 --> 00:21:01,920 where all of this started is for sale. Would you like to go and take a look at it? Oh, that's cool. 215 00:21:02,480 --> 00:21:05,760 So Sherry takes them out to the farm to take a look at it. 216 00:21:06,800 --> 00:21:12,240 Immediately within five minutes, they Fawn and her husband felt this connection and they had to buy 217 00:21:12,240 --> 00:21:20,400 it. So they buy this farm. Turns out Sherry Moore was the master distiller that had worked at Jack 218 00:21:20,400 --> 00:21:26,240 Daniels. So she didn't know that at first. Fawn found this out later because Sherry said to her, 219 00:21:26,240 --> 00:21:34,640 Hey, if you ever want to do some distilling and bring back, you know, the name of uncle of uncle 220 00:21:34,640 --> 00:21:42,080 nearest, I will come out of retirement and be your distiller. Isn't this amazing? So she's like a 221 00:21:42,080 --> 00:21:47,520 great, great niece of Jack Daniel. So she was Sherry. So she did it for like 30 years. So she 222 00:21:47,520 --> 00:21:52,800 probably, she was retired by this point and doing real estate. So you figure what she could have been 223 00:21:52,800 --> 00:21:59,600 50 in 2015. I mean, I didn't have the date of when she left the Jack Daniels corporation, but yeah, 224 00:21:59,600 --> 00:22:05,600 like it could have been like 1970s, 1980s. Are there any other people in this town? Like 225 00:22:05,600 --> 00:22:13,760 what is the, I'm curious what the population of this town is like 37. Yeah, right. It's, I've 226 00:22:13,760 --> 00:22:19,360 heard of Lynchburg. I'm sure it's bigger than that. It's a very small, it's about 6,600 people. 227 00:22:19,360 --> 00:22:24,560 Okay. And they're all descendants of Jack Daniel and their screen. That might be small by your 228 00:22:24,560 --> 00:22:30,560 standards, but out there, that's a big small city. Yeah. Yeah. 6,600. I mean, that's yeah, 229 00:22:30,560 --> 00:22:36,640 they got, they got a downtown. Yeah, for sure. Probably a very adorable downtown. We got to go 230 00:22:36,640 --> 00:22:40,640 to Lynchburg. You actually can go to Lynchburg. You can now get a tour of the uncle nearest. You 231 00:22:40,640 --> 00:22:46,320 can go somewhere nearby and get Jack Daniel's tour. Oh yeah. He says Shelbyville, Tennessee. So, 232 00:22:47,040 --> 00:22:53,920 you know, that's just outside of Memphis. Well, there's, you know, I wanted to look into this, 233 00:22:53,920 --> 00:22:59,040 but I didn't. They actually are using somebody else's bourbon right now while their bourbon is 234 00:22:59,040 --> 00:23:05,440 aging. Oh yeah. Interesting. But the person is like doing it to their standards of how they want it 235 00:23:05,440 --> 00:23:10,560 done. So how much longer till we can actually drink theirs? That's what I didn't find out. Yeah. I 236 00:23:10,560 --> 00:23:15,280 know that there's like a- So the one that they're using is probably Shelbyville. I wanted to, I 237 00:23:15,280 --> 00:23:23,520 heard the figure 16 years is what it takes. So anyways, yeah. So the seed is planted by Sherry 238 00:23:23,520 --> 00:23:28,720 Moore, you know, the master distiller for Jack Daniel. It's like an offhand comment. Like, 239 00:23:28,720 --> 00:23:32,480 but then in the front of the bottle. Yeah, exactly. And I don't want to jump ahead, but are you, 240 00:23:32,480 --> 00:23:36,880 do you have anything about Edie Butler? Okay. So we'll come back to that. So anyways, I just want 241 00:23:36,880 --> 00:23:41,040 to talk a little bit about Fawn really quickly. You know how she kind of ended up where she is. 242 00:23:41,040 --> 00:23:46,080 Who she is as a person though, she has a pretty interesting story too. She grew up in California. 243 00:23:46,080 --> 00:23:52,000 Her dad was a producer for Motown. Oh. Yeah. Like worked with Smokey Robinson's and or Smokey 244 00:23:52,000 --> 00:23:58,960 Robinson and the Supremes and everybody else. So she grew up in this family of there's celebrities 245 00:23:58,960 --> 00:24:05,440 everywhere. But her dad decided to become a pastor when she was a child, like a conservative 246 00:24:05,440 --> 00:24:10,560 Christian pastor. So he stopped being the music producer for these people, but became their pastor. 247 00:24:10,560 --> 00:24:16,160 So they would still come into the house throughout her childhood looking for pastorial advice. 248 00:24:16,160 --> 00:24:22,320 Isn't that interesting? Or pastoral advice. The conservative nature of her parents though, 249 00:24:22,320 --> 00:24:27,600 and now she's living in California, like LA area, did not jive with her. So she actually ran away 250 00:24:27,600 --> 00:24:32,320 from home when she was 15. Ran away slash told her parents I'm out. Well, she didn't have anywhere 251 00:24:32,320 --> 00:24:37,520 to go. So she went to a homeless shelter and chose to live in homeless shelters and make her way on 252 00:24:37,520 --> 00:24:42,000 her own. Oh man. They must've been really fucking conservative. Yeah. Like conservative, like you 253 00:24:42,000 --> 00:24:47,840 have to wear long skirts conservative. Yeah. That's orthodox. It was some sort of Christian. 254 00:24:49,600 --> 00:24:56,080 So anyway, so she ended up in a shelter that was one of those work to get your own place type 255 00:24:56,080 --> 00:25:00,320 of shelters. So she worked, she turned in her paycheck and they saved up all of her money for 256 00:25:00,320 --> 00:25:06,160 her to move on to the next place. She said it was one of the greatest experiences of her life 257 00:25:06,160 --> 00:25:10,960 because she finally had independence. She was working towards a goal. She felt supported 258 00:25:10,960 --> 00:25:15,760 in this environment. More supported as who she was as a person than she was in her own home. 259 00:25:16,800 --> 00:25:23,520 And then when she was 18, she got her own place. Wow. Yeah. I know. So she was interning at a PR 260 00:25:23,520 --> 00:25:29,440 firm and these clients came in and I guess at the time PR was a lot different than it is now. 261 00:25:29,440 --> 00:25:33,200 And she had this idea of doing this like full like brand integration and 262 00:25:34,400 --> 00:25:40,080 rather than just paying for ads like on TV or whatever, paying to get your brands put into 263 00:25:40,080 --> 00:25:45,600 like TV shows and movies, which we see a lot now. Yeah. She was like early days of that. 264 00:25:45,600 --> 00:25:50,640 And there was a couple of clients who were really interested in doing that too. And so she, 265 00:25:52,320 --> 00:25:56,480 she's always had big ideas of being a business owner. So she was like, all right, this is great 266 00:25:56,480 --> 00:26:02,480 because she had so many connections in the music and media industry. She was able to use her 267 00:26:02,480 --> 00:26:10,080 connections to get these, these, her two clients put into these places, into like, into movies, 268 00:26:10,080 --> 00:26:14,480 into music videos, into commercials and things. And she was really successful, but she kind of 269 00:26:15,200 --> 00:26:19,760 wanted to be bigger than she was. And so she brought all these people onto the payroll and then 270 00:26:20,640 --> 00:26:27,920 with like grandiose ideas. And then it just, it all fell apart financially. So then, you know, 271 00:26:27,920 --> 00:26:33,440 she, she met her husband, Keith. It was the, it was the son of her hairdresser. 272 00:26:34,480 --> 00:26:39,200 And her hairdresser was like, I think you would love my son. And she's like, okay, this is fucking 273 00:26:39,200 --> 00:26:43,920 weird. Such a cliche, isn't it? I know. That's adorable. This is exactly how Marcus's sister 274 00:26:43,920 --> 00:26:50,400 met her husband too. Oh really? That's really cute. Except for it was the mom, it was Marcus's mom and 275 00:26:50,400 --> 00:26:54,560 her hairdresser. They steamed to bring them together. Collaborated together. Oh, that's kind of 276 00:26:54,560 --> 00:26:59,680 cute. It is cute. And then I just listened to another story recently on another podcast about 277 00:26:59,680 --> 00:27:05,040 two people met in a barbershop. Love. Love is in the salons guys. If you're looking for love. 278 00:27:05,040 --> 00:27:09,360 If you're looking for, yeah, connection. Yeah. Ask your hairdresser to set you up. Yeah. Tell 279 00:27:09,360 --> 00:27:17,760 your hairdresser. But yeah, so she, she agreed. She met Keith and they hit it off, fell deeply in love. 280 00:27:19,200 --> 00:27:23,680 And so then they just had this great relationship where I think they had a relationship that she 281 00:27:23,680 --> 00:27:29,600 didn't have growing up where he respected her as an individual, supported her and the things she 282 00:27:29,600 --> 00:27:36,080 wanted to do. And so she was like, wow, this is amazing. And so she started this blog. She wanted 283 00:27:36,080 --> 00:27:41,600 to find a million women who were in happy relationships like hers. Good luck. I know right. 284 00:27:42,720 --> 00:27:47,360 Just kidding. Yeah. I like you Marcus. Then did it come down to like one in each state? 285 00:27:47,360 --> 00:27:54,320 Yeah. Sure. Well, I think it's funny because it's like, she says she loves love. She loves love. 286 00:27:54,320 --> 00:27:59,760 She loves respect. She loves these stories. It makes total sense given the story of why the story 287 00:27:59,760 --> 00:28:06,480 of Jack Daniels and nearest green connected. It's totally like the same kind of stories that she's 288 00:28:06,480 --> 00:28:12,160 always been attracted to. Became an author, had a publisher and everything else who had her writing 289 00:28:12,160 --> 00:28:16,880 this book. So yeah, like I said, now we're back in Singapore. She's reading the New York Times. 290 00:28:16,880 --> 00:28:22,320 She's like, I'm just going to go to Lynchburg to write this book. Buys the farm, not because she 291 00:28:22,320 --> 00:28:27,760 wanted to start a distillery, but because she wanted to be fully immersed in the story of Jack 292 00:28:27,760 --> 00:28:32,800 Daniel and nearest green while she wrote this book. She wanted to be in the place where it started, 293 00:28:32,800 --> 00:28:40,320 which is so cool. Yeah. I mean, what an amazing, like just the privilege. I'm not saying she's 294 00:28:40,320 --> 00:28:46,240 privileged, but the opportunity, the position in life to be able to make that decision and go in 295 00:28:46,240 --> 00:28:53,360 all out like that. Go buy a farm and then just meet everybody. And then now I'm sure she's like a 296 00:28:53,360 --> 00:28:57,920 billionaire too. Well, I don't know. So we'll get to the business side of it later. I mean, 297 00:28:57,920 --> 00:29:02,080 things are going well, but they're not going easy. Did she ever end up writing the book? 298 00:29:02,080 --> 00:29:06,320 I don't know. She has not written the book as far as I can tell. Too busy making whiskey. 299 00:29:07,680 --> 00:29:14,480 I just, they're one of the fastest growing whiskey brands, if not the fastest growing 300 00:29:14,480 --> 00:29:18,720 whiskey brand in America right now. Yeah. She's got some great business stuff that she's been 301 00:29:18,720 --> 00:29:24,560 working on. That's really cool. Fucking wild. So yeah, so she's in this community of Lynchburg. 302 00:29:24,560 --> 00:29:30,880 She and her husband have been fully welcomed into the community itself. They moved permanently from 303 00:29:30,880 --> 00:29:35,600 California to Lynchburg. They're for friends and family back home. We're like, you guys are fucking 304 00:29:35,600 --> 00:29:43,360 crazy. Right. But they love it. They love the community. They love the people that she said 305 00:29:43,360 --> 00:29:48,400 it's so welcoming. She said, of course there's like little bits of racism here and there, 306 00:29:48,400 --> 00:29:54,240 but overall she said it's a beautiful community of people and that like they have been so like 307 00:29:54,240 --> 00:30:00,160 happy and accepted. She said people like in their helping her do this research have been so open. 308 00:30:00,160 --> 00:30:06,640 And so getting to the getting to starting nearest green or uncle nearest the whiskey brand. So she 309 00:30:06,640 --> 00:30:12,800 has this Sherry Moore who drops this comment to her. And then the, she was meeting with a large 310 00:30:12,800 --> 00:30:19,280 group of nearest descendants in Nashville. And so she gets together with them and she's like, you 311 00:30:19,280 --> 00:30:24,800 know, like what, how, what would you like to see? Like how would you like to see his legacy honored? 312 00:30:24,800 --> 00:30:29,120 You know, and they, I guess she said she got the feeling that people had already been talking 313 00:30:30,960 --> 00:30:38,240 about what they wanted. And they said, you know, we'd love to see his name on a whiskey and we'd 314 00:30:38,240 --> 00:30:43,600 love to see his name go out there. And they're like, you know, we'd love to see you do it 315 00:30:43,600 --> 00:30:47,520 because you know, you already own the farm. And she was like, I don't know about this, 316 00:30:48,080 --> 00:30:52,240 you know, cause it's a, she's like, I'm an author, I'm writing a book. I'm, this is not the undertaking 317 00:30:52,240 --> 00:30:58,400 I'm here for. But you know, this also plants another seed. She actually said that she, you know, 318 00:30:58,400 --> 00:31:04,400 she grew up religiously, she's got this faith and she, you know, she has a prayer that she likes to 319 00:31:04,400 --> 00:31:09,840 say. And she's like, if this is an opportunity, like God, this, this is an opportunity you want 320 00:31:09,840 --> 00:31:15,760 me to take, open the door. If this is not an opportunity, close the door so I can never think 321 00:31:15,760 --> 00:31:23,360 about it again. And so she seems to be one of those people who trusts that if there's an opportunity, 322 00:31:23,360 --> 00:31:28,800 it was put there for her to take advantage of, which I think, you know, I think a lot of people 323 00:31:28,800 --> 00:31:33,520 seek that through meditation, whether it's prayer or meditation or mindfulness, whatever you want 324 00:31:33,520 --> 00:31:39,120 to call it. I mean, I know that I've kind of relied on that too. If this is meant to be, it'll be sort 325 00:31:39,120 --> 00:31:45,520 of, it kind of hearkens back to that phrase. Jesus, take the wheel. Yeah, there you go. Jesus, take the 326 00:31:45,520 --> 00:31:52,320 wheel. So she gets back in the car and I think she has one of those moments where she's recognizing 327 00:31:52,320 --> 00:31:57,600 this is why do these things keep popping up? So she calls Sherri and more and is like, Hey, 328 00:31:58,880 --> 00:32:03,280 I think we should do this. Oh my God. So at first, what she thinks she wants to do is just do a 329 00:32:03,280 --> 00:32:11,680 commemorative release of whiskey, 500 bottles of Uncle Nearest commemorative just to honor him. 330 00:32:11,680 --> 00:32:17,040 But then she starts going into the business side of distilling and there's a lot of laws, 331 00:32:17,040 --> 00:32:22,720 a lot of regulations around distilling and distribution. So like wineries, they can just 332 00:32:22,720 --> 00:32:26,480 make a bottle of wine and like give it out to whomever, right? You can kind of ship directly 333 00:32:26,480 --> 00:32:32,080 to stores. You can ship directly to consumers. Spirits are a lot more regulated. So you can't 334 00:32:32,080 --> 00:32:37,600 just be a small brand and send it off to your local liquor store. Liquor stores have to buy it from 335 00:32:37,600 --> 00:32:45,120 distributors. And we all know fucking distributors suck. We've learned that. We've learned this 336 00:32:45,120 --> 00:32:52,160 lesson. And distributors don't just pick up anybody. You can't just be like, Hey, I got some 337 00:32:52,160 --> 00:32:58,480 alcohol to sell you. What do you think? You know, they're like, go fucking show me. Yeah. Prove 338 00:32:58,480 --> 00:33:04,560 yourself. So you have to have like X amount to even be considered by a distributor. You have to 339 00:33:04,560 --> 00:33:12,400 have X amount of reserve of like, you can support so much demand. You also have to show them like 340 00:33:12,400 --> 00:33:17,120 in a complete marketing plan. How are you going to show this to consumers? How are you going to 341 00:33:17,120 --> 00:33:22,400 sell it? Demos, advertising, like how much money are you putting into this? They want an entire, 342 00:33:22,400 --> 00:33:27,440 you have to sell them on why they should work with you and why that's going to be profitable to them 343 00:33:27,440 --> 00:33:33,120 to a certain amount. So she was like, it goes and looks into it. Her, by her estimations to run this 344 00:33:33,120 --> 00:33:38,480 500 bottle run of commemorative uncle nearest, it would cost them about a million dollars. 345 00:33:38,480 --> 00:33:45,040 Oh my God. Isn't that insane? What does that work out to you per bottle? Right. Yeah. So she kind of 346 00:33:45,040 --> 00:33:50,880 like, she kind of like is like, you know what, that's just not going to work. Um, but then, 347 00:33:50,880 --> 00:33:56,400 you know, it's like, it's like the, she like can't shake this feeling that like, this is the direction 348 00:33:56,400 --> 00:34:02,080 she needs to go. So then she just kind of decides to go all in. Why do a commemorative bottle? Like 349 00:34:02,080 --> 00:34:06,800 let me start a fucking company. Wow. It's crazy that that's the direction she went as opposed to 350 00:34:06,800 --> 00:34:11,760 fuck all this. I know if I'm going to spend a million dollars to do 500, I may as well spend 351 00:34:11,760 --> 00:34:16,880 a million dollars to do everything. Right. Basically, I think that's kind of where her mindset 352 00:34:16,880 --> 00:34:21,200 ended up. She was pretty discouraged, but then yeah, it just came back around to like, hey, I 353 00:34:21,200 --> 00:34:26,880 gotta do this thing. Um, and so she called, yeah, she calls Sherry again and it's like, hey, 354 00:34:27,520 --> 00:34:31,760 if you do this distilling, I'm going to raise the money and we're going to do this thing. 355 00:34:31,760 --> 00:34:38,080 And Sherry's like, hell yeah, let's do it. Awesome. Yeah. So she, um, yeah, she, she raises the funds. 356 00:34:38,080 --> 00:34:44,320 She gets, I mean, this woman is so connected from her father and her husband being an exec, 357 00:34:44,320 --> 00:34:49,840 like in probably her own personal connections as well. She's like had no problem raising money. 358 00:34:49,840 --> 00:34:56,720 She raised, she raises $60 million of course, and investor money. Right. And like, wait, 359 00:34:56,720 --> 00:35:00,720 in like small investments or like from investment firms, what kind of, 360 00:35:01,280 --> 00:35:05,760 should not say exactly where she got the $60 million from. She did talk about in this podcast 361 00:35:05,760 --> 00:35:10,000 episode. Oh, let me mention these two podcasts really quick. Besides the New York times article, 362 00:35:10,000 --> 00:35:15,600 I also listened to how I built this with Guy Raz. You know, Guy Raz, that's a business podcast. 363 00:35:15,600 --> 00:35:20,320 He talked about how she built the business. I also listened to the Gastropod podcast that 364 00:35:20,320 --> 00:35:26,800 talked a little bit more about the story behind it. More about like her personal experience doing 365 00:35:26,800 --> 00:35:31,680 this research and getting to know the family members and more about the story there. So I 366 00:35:31,680 --> 00:35:36,640 definitely recommend if you're interested to read those two podcasts or read, listen to those two 367 00:35:36,640 --> 00:35:42,720 podcast episodes. Sure. Anyway, so she gets all this money. They start doing it. They, like I said, 368 00:35:42,720 --> 00:35:49,920 they have to use somebody else's whiskey until their whiskey is completely ready to go. But 369 00:35:49,920 --> 00:35:54,560 we're talking, you're saying how they're one of the fastest growing whiskey brands. It's 370 00:35:55,200 --> 00:36:00,400 completely intentional on her part. So she has this background in PR. She kind of understands, 371 00:36:00,400 --> 00:36:05,840 you know, from her early, early adulthood, she kind of understands like, Hey, you got to get 372 00:36:05,840 --> 00:36:09,520 this out to people. People have to hear about you. People have to know about you. She's like, 373 00:36:09,520 --> 00:36:14,400 we got to generate our own buzz. So she hires some salespeople. They're going out to bars and stuff 374 00:36:14,400 --> 00:36:18,480 and selling this to people. She said one of her sales tactics was to go in there and be like, 375 00:36:18,480 --> 00:36:25,280 tell me which one of your whiskies is not, was not founded by a white man. And people would be like, 376 00:36:26,320 --> 00:36:32,160 like none of them. She's like, well, here's this one, the first African American, Black American, 377 00:36:32,160 --> 00:36:40,320 uh, you know, whiskey company ever. Which is kind of crazy, right? Awesome. So crazy, especially 378 00:36:40,320 --> 00:36:47,760 because like slave labor was what built up so many of these companies. Right. So many distillers were 379 00:36:47,760 --> 00:36:53,040 enslaved black men. Yeah. Well, and plus when you have a war chest of $60 million, like you can 380 00:36:53,040 --> 00:36:57,840 pretty much do whatever the fuck you want for, you know. Well, she wanted to be really strategic 381 00:36:57,840 --> 00:37:00,960 about the money too, because she didn't want to have to go back and ask money. So she didn't want 382 00:37:00,960 --> 00:37:06,400 to just throw money away. That's a huge war chest to sort of like figure out like, you know, like, 383 00:37:06,400 --> 00:37:10,640 okay, it's going to take a million dollars to get to scale. Now let's just sell it. Right. Like 384 00:37:10,640 --> 00:37:15,760 there's, there's just, it's a lot of confidence walking in of like, we can do whatever we can 385 00:37:15,760 --> 00:37:20,000 scale. Part of this money to those is going into building a new distillate distillery, 386 00:37:20,000 --> 00:37:25,200 $50 million distillery facility is what they're working on right now. So they have a lot of money 387 00:37:25,200 --> 00:37:29,440 wrapped up in this, making this completely successful. She said what she wants. She said 388 00:37:29,440 --> 00:37:38,480 like Jack Daniel's whiskey is such a well-known brand. Everybody knows, like you could go anywhere. 389 00:37:38,480 --> 00:37:45,280 Everybody knows the name Jack Daniel's. She wants nearest green to be as ubiquitous with whiskey and 390 00:37:45,280 --> 00:37:51,040 the, in American history as Jack Daniel is. And so she's like, the only way to do that is at a 391 00:37:51,040 --> 00:37:57,040 gigantic scale. And so she's like, we're going to do this. It's crazy. Yes. It's, she's got, she wants 392 00:37:57,040 --> 00:38:03,600 to be as big as Jack Daniel's with uncle nearest name on that bottle. So she's got these salespeople 393 00:38:03,600 --> 00:38:09,120 going out. She also entered herself into every single competition that she could. She said out 394 00:38:09,120 --> 00:38:17,120 of 16 competitions, they won the top prize for 13 of them and then got like silver or bronze for 395 00:38:17,120 --> 00:38:23,120 the other three. That's dope. Amazing. So she's got this huge buzz just in the whiskey world. 396 00:38:23,120 --> 00:38:28,640 Yeah. But product. Right. But the stores don't necessarily know the stores aren't always 397 00:38:28,640 --> 00:38:32,720 following these competitions. Store owners, you think they get the manager at Benny's gives a 398 00:38:32,720 --> 00:38:38,400 shit. Everybody's an award winner. Right. Yeah. So the next thing she did was, you know, so they, 399 00:38:38,400 --> 00:38:43,280 they only had so much run on this. And so they went and they distributed it. Well, what she did 400 00:38:43,280 --> 00:38:48,480 when it started selling out through the distributor, while they were getting together another order, 401 00:38:48,480 --> 00:38:55,840 she ran a bunch of ads about uncle nearest so that people like regular people would go to the store 402 00:38:55,840 --> 00:39:00,960 looking to buy and try uncle nearest show up at your local Benny's and they're like, oh, we're 403 00:39:00,960 --> 00:39:06,240 sold out. So she's like, you have all of these people coming in and talking to the store people 404 00:39:06,240 --> 00:39:11,200 saying, I want this uncle nearest. Then they, these store managers and employees have to take 405 00:39:11,200 --> 00:39:16,240 notice that it's sold out because now they're having to like search for it and look in the 406 00:39:16,240 --> 00:39:21,520 computer. Like, where is it? Do we have any in stock? Right. And so then when it comes in stock, 407 00:39:21,520 --> 00:39:25,520 then they're like, what all these people have been asking for uncle nearest, I better buy a bunch of 408 00:39:25,520 --> 00:39:32,800 it. Smart fucking woman. Yeah. She calls it scarcity marketing. God damn it. There's a name for it. 409 00:39:33,520 --> 00:39:39,600 Yeah. It's really smart. She's super smart. She's so brilliant and so passionate. And so like the 410 00:39:39,600 --> 00:39:44,880 next thing she had to do, this is an interesting little aside when she was, so she starts uncle 411 00:39:44,880 --> 00:39:50,000 nearest does it very quietly, gets everything trademarked, gets everything for her business 412 00:39:50,000 --> 00:39:57,200 in place. But then she has to give the Jack Daniel's company a heads up of what she's doing 413 00:39:57,200 --> 00:40:02,080 because Jack Dan, because nearest green is now a part of the Jack Daniel's story at this point, 414 00:40:02,080 --> 00:40:08,000 because they had released that information now 2015 ish. And now it's a part of their branding 415 00:40:08,000 --> 00:40:17,200 near uncle nearest. So she goes to the president of Jack Daniel's says to him, Hey, I'm starting 416 00:40:17,200 --> 00:40:20,640 a whiskey company called uncle nearest. I already have the trademarks. I already have everything in 417 00:40:20,640 --> 00:40:25,520 place and we're about to start production. And she said he did not see that coming. And it like 418 00:40:25,520 --> 00:40:29,680 floored him and blew him away. And she said, this was a really scary moment because they could have 419 00:40:29,680 --> 00:40:34,080 destroyed everything that she had worked for legally with trademarks and everything else. 420 00:40:34,080 --> 00:40:38,960 And she's like, I would have won, but they would have decimated me financially. And she's like, 421 00:40:38,960 --> 00:40:42,640 I don't know that it would have been worth it at that point to go and spend all of my, 422 00:40:43,200 --> 00:40:49,920 my investors money on legal fees. And so after some like legal haranguing and going back and forth, 423 00:40:50,560 --> 00:40:54,880 in the end, she was allowed to use the uncle nearest name. She was allowed to build a company 424 00:40:54,880 --> 00:41:00,000 for uncle nearest, but she was not allowed to build it using the name of Jack Daniel's. So she 425 00:41:00,000 --> 00:41:06,720 can use Jack Daniel in her story, but only if it's historically a part of the historical factualness 426 00:41:06,720 --> 00:41:13,280 of her story. And if it's like in the media, so it's like mentioned a little bit on their website, 427 00:41:13,280 --> 00:41:19,440 but it's all about this has to be about the story of uncle nearest. It can't be, well, this guy, 428 00:41:20,240 --> 00:41:24,800 you know, can't be based on, right? Well, it's not even defamatory. It's basically like 429 00:41:24,800 --> 00:41:31,440 like what Jack Daniel's company doesn't want is for them to be building their brand saying, 430 00:41:31,440 --> 00:41:35,280 we're basically like alluding to the fact that they're the same as Jack Daniel's, 431 00:41:35,280 --> 00:41:39,920 like this company taught Jack Daniel's how to distill. So therefore we have, you know, 432 00:41:39,920 --> 00:41:43,920 a product that's just as good as Jack Daniel's. Oh, I see. You get it? Yeah. So they had to 433 00:41:43,920 --> 00:41:49,120 tread very lightly and they still have to tread really lightly because at any point in time, 434 00:41:49,120 --> 00:41:54,240 Jack Daniel's can come in and be like, Hey, we have a trademark issue with you guys. 435 00:41:54,240 --> 00:41:59,440 Yeah. Until her company is built up enough to stand on its own. They're probably just going to 436 00:41:59,440 --> 00:42:05,120 buy her, buy her out. No, she has no interest in being bought out. She's, this is a hundred percent. 437 00:42:05,120 --> 00:42:10,800 She wants a company that's going to outlive her. It's not going to outlive everybody. She wants to, 438 00:42:11,440 --> 00:42:19,440 yeah, be, she wants to be Jack Daniel's of, you know, a black American, the black American, 439 00:42:19,440 --> 00:42:23,120 Jack Daniel's. Go get them. That's great. That's great. And so, you know, you're talking about the, 440 00:42:23,120 --> 00:42:29,040 the master blender, you know, being one of nearest descendants. She, when she first started this 441 00:42:29,040 --> 00:42:35,120 project, she really wanted to have some of his family members involved in the process. She wanted 442 00:42:35,120 --> 00:42:40,560 them there. So the first podcast I listened to in 2019, none of them had taken her up on it, 443 00:42:40,560 --> 00:42:46,160 but I guess they had established some sort of fund for his descendants to help fund, like if they 444 00:42:46,160 --> 00:42:52,320 wanted to go to school to learn master distilling, like they would pay for it. The uncle nearest 445 00:42:52,320 --> 00:42:59,120 company would pay for it and support them. And it sounds like she's finally got one of them to come 446 00:42:59,120 --> 00:43:04,240 around. She said that that was the biggest thing is she wanted nearest greens family involved in 447 00:43:04,240 --> 00:43:11,360 this company and doing the work that uncle nearest himself was doing. Yeah, that's really cool. 448 00:43:13,040 --> 00:43:18,080 So yeah, here we are. Now we have this company and I think it's a really amazing and beautiful 449 00:43:18,080 --> 00:43:25,280 story. So happy, like so happy because this so often these stories go sideways, but this is really, 450 00:43:25,840 --> 00:43:31,520 it's a super beautiful story. I really like it. Well, shall we drink some whiskey? 451 00:43:34,960 --> 00:43:42,800 Yeah. So uncle nearest hasn't made a coffee product yet. Not yet. So what we're going to have to do 452 00:43:42,800 --> 00:43:49,040 is try the Jack Daniels flavored coffee. I'm going to go ahead and make a prediction right now. 453 00:43:49,040 --> 00:43:54,080 Tastes like cherry. Tastes like cherry. Oh, that's funny. 454 00:43:54,080 --> 00:43:59,680 This is probably roasted by some giant toll roaster who licenses the name Jack Daniels 455 00:43:59,680 --> 00:44:04,320 from the company. Is it the same white company? And then I was going to say, if it is, we can 456 00:44:04,320 --> 00:44:09,200 just tell them to go check out the Jim Beam episode. You'll learn all about the coffee company there. 457 00:44:09,200 --> 00:44:14,400 Different Jim Beam is Suntory. Remember? No, the roaster. The roaster. Oh yeah. The white 458 00:44:14,400 --> 00:44:21,520 coffee company. Who knows? It's one of those big roasteries that licenses the name and throws some 459 00:44:21,520 --> 00:44:29,920 cherry flavoring out there. Okay. So can I just, can we just sit for a moment in this story? 460 00:44:30,720 --> 00:44:38,160 It's a great story. It's a crazy story. But I think that that's not uncommon that 461 00:44:38,160 --> 00:44:45,840 there would be white men working aside slaves back in the South, like poor white people, 462 00:44:45,840 --> 00:44:49,200 or maybe young lads who ran away from home at seven. 463 00:44:50,320 --> 00:44:53,200 That's crazy. Yeah, that's pretty wild. So wild. 464 00:44:53,200 --> 00:44:56,240 Seven years old. I mean, he just ran next door to the pastor's house. 465 00:44:56,240 --> 00:45:04,720 And then the pastor's like, you know what? My rented master distiller slave needs an assistant, 466 00:45:04,720 --> 00:45:11,760 so sure I'm going to hire a seven year old that just showed the fuck up. Sure. Kind of like, 467 00:45:12,560 --> 00:45:19,120 what the fuck were they doing down there, you know, at that time? Yeah, this makes sense. Sure. 468 00:45:19,120 --> 00:45:24,400 Well, in the days before DCFS. Hey, hey, hey, yeah, like, hey, pastor's wife, 469 00:45:24,400 --> 00:45:26,960 guess who just showed up? Guess what problem just got solved? 470 00:45:26,960 --> 00:45:33,680 Got a farmhand now just showed up. How lucky are we? God bless us. 471 00:45:35,840 --> 00:45:38,800 Free labor. It's great. 472 00:45:38,800 --> 00:45:40,560 Great. Ask and you shall receive. 473 00:45:42,960 --> 00:45:46,480 But yeah, this is one of the most pleasant stories I think I've ever heard 474 00:45:46,480 --> 00:45:53,360 or researched. It's just, I mean, it kind of like restores my faith in 1860s humanity. 475 00:45:53,360 --> 00:45:55,840 Yeah. You know. 476 00:45:56,640 --> 00:46:00,480 And humanity throughout it. I mean, there's so few beautiful stories like that. 477 00:46:00,480 --> 00:46:03,600 It's great. It's really nice. So yeah. 478 00:46:03,600 --> 00:46:07,200 Yeah. Well, shall we brew some coffee? Sure. 479 00:46:07,200 --> 00:46:07,700 Okay. 480 00:46:08,320 --> 00:46:14,080 Mardis Coffee roasts the highest quality single origin coffees without the snobbery. 481 00:46:14,080 --> 00:46:19,760 They take the guesswork out of buying specialty coffee by carefully curating green coffees 482 00:46:19,760 --> 00:46:25,760 and sorting them to one of their tiers based on cupping score, price, flavor notes, and roast 483 00:46:25,760 --> 00:46:34,960 level. Go to www.mardis.coffee forward slash no bad reviews to see what they're roasting today. 484 00:46:34,960 --> 00:46:36,080 Pip pip cheerio. 485 00:46:37,920 --> 00:46:42,880 All right. We're back. So yeah, we were just briefly talking two seconds ago. 486 00:46:42,880 --> 00:46:44,320 Yeah. About how, yeah, Fawn, 487 00:46:44,320 --> 00:46:51,520 you know, our family was like, we really would love to see his name carried on. Fawn has the 488 00:46:51,520 --> 00:46:58,080 resources and the ability to do it, but Fawn doesn't want it to be her company. She wants to 489 00:46:58,080 --> 00:47:04,480 honor nearest by having his descendants involved and she doesn't want it to just be her company. 490 00:47:04,480 --> 00:47:10,320 And, you know, here's this woman from California making money on this guy's story. She wants it 491 00:47:10,320 --> 00:47:15,600 to still be his story, which I think is really cool too. So it's pretty cool how she's like, 492 00:47:15,600 --> 00:47:20,720 not only telling the story, but she's in a way like making this story happen too, or at least a key 493 00:47:21,280 --> 00:47:24,800 component, but the whole family's and everybody and, you know, Jack Daniel's 494 00:47:24,800 --> 00:47:31,680 descendant coming together too to make this happen is pretty cool. Yeah, it's great. It's 495 00:47:31,680 --> 00:47:37,280 like one of the greatest stories. It's really hard to find people who are, so like here's Fawn, 496 00:47:37,280 --> 00:47:42,480 she's like a fucking doer. I mean, I've never heard of a doer like her. She's like, I don't 497 00:47:42,480 --> 00:47:47,600 want to live here when I'm 15. Right, right. Yeah. She's like, I'm going to go make it. 498 00:47:47,600 --> 00:47:54,320 She's been making it on her own her entire life. How old is she now? 45. Wow. So she's 45 now. 499 00:47:56,960 --> 00:48:04,240 But she's doing it the right way in a way that feels very honest and like 500 00:48:04,240 --> 00:48:10,320 true. I don't think she's like, I need to be a millionaire. I need to have a bunch of money. 501 00:48:10,320 --> 00:48:15,760 She's not in this because she's trying to become rich. She's in it because she's really... 502 00:48:15,760 --> 00:48:22,960 She's found the authenticity and she's going to sell it. Yeah. Yeah. She's doing great. And so I 503 00:48:22,960 --> 00:48:27,600 guess her company though, Uncle Nearest, is profitable, but they're at that point where 504 00:48:27,600 --> 00:48:31,920 they're reinvesting all of their profits back into the company because she does not want to 505 00:48:31,920 --> 00:48:36,720 keep going to the investors and asking for money. She wants to be self-sustaining. She wants this 506 00:48:36,720 --> 00:48:42,640 success to be the success of Uncle Nearest and of the company. So that I think is great too. Like 507 00:48:42,640 --> 00:48:48,160 what a mindset we don't see. Yeah. Because the only way that you keep going back to the well for more 508 00:48:48,160 --> 00:48:52,560 and more money, the only way out is like to sell it eventually. That's what investors want. They want 509 00:48:52,560 --> 00:48:57,840 their money back. Ah, that's a good point. Right. So the sooner you get to self-sufficiency and kind 510 00:48:57,840 --> 00:49:02,560 of everybody paid back, that's where you have a legacy brand and a legacy company that'll last 511 00:49:03,280 --> 00:49:08,000 forever. Yeah. That's a great point. Yeah. As long as somebody doesn't run into the ground. 512 00:49:08,960 --> 00:49:14,960 She definitely... I feel like her values in some ways, I mean, we're way tinier, but I feel like 513 00:49:14,960 --> 00:49:19,760 I can really relate and connect with her values and what she's trying to do and trying to do it 514 00:49:19,760 --> 00:49:24,000 the right way and not just trying to turn a profit and trying to reinvest her profits and become a 515 00:49:24,000 --> 00:49:28,400 self-sufficient, self-sustaining company that's just trying to do the right thing and not 516 00:49:28,400 --> 00:49:33,920 necessarily trying to get it right. She's got her story. She's got her mission and it's about 517 00:49:33,920 --> 00:49:41,040 her product and the story of Uncle Nearest. It's not about all of these other... Her appetite for 518 00:49:41,040 --> 00:49:48,160 scale is bigger than ours. Way bigger than ours. I don't actually want that kind of stress in my 519 00:49:48,160 --> 00:49:52,960 life. She seems to handle it very well. But maybe if we didn't have kids, the kids stressed me out 520 00:49:52,960 --> 00:49:58,080 so much. I already have stress in my life. I don't need more stress. Look. I don't need to go to work 521 00:49:58,080 --> 00:50:04,080 to be stressed. No, I'm trying to stay aggressively small. I'm trying to stay aggressively chill. 522 00:50:04,080 --> 00:50:09,200 Yeah. So you guys want to do an O-factor reveal because it smells... Yeah, it fucking smells like 523 00:50:09,200 --> 00:50:15,840 cherry almond in here big time. No, I mean, it's like the ubiquitous alcohol, like cherry fake 524 00:50:15,840 --> 00:50:20,320 smell. This is familiar. You've tried this. I don't know if this needs to make it in, but somebody 525 00:50:20,320 --> 00:50:24,320 recently said Steph's kind of negative on the podcast. I thought you guys were in No Bad Reviews 526 00:50:24,320 --> 00:50:28,320 podcast. What? I am kind of negative on the podcast. Nobody said that. You're supposed to be No Bad Reviews. 527 00:50:28,320 --> 00:50:32,320 It's true. I am more negative than I'm supposed to be. Which episode? I don't know. Did somebody like 528 00:50:32,320 --> 00:50:36,320 privately message us? Who was it? No, I was talking to somebody in person. Maybe it was... I don't 529 00:50:36,320 --> 00:50:40,320 remember who it was. Somebody locally. Because I'm always like, it's not good enough. I'm going to 530 00:50:40,320 --> 00:50:44,320 add whiskey. I'm going to add whiskey. I'm going to add this. No, no, no. I'm just going to go 531 00:50:44,320 --> 00:50:49,320 straight to the whiskey. You have to say what I think would make this better is whiskey. 532 00:50:49,320 --> 00:50:57,320 We all love whiskey. It's a challenge. It's a challenge, you know, to really... 533 00:50:57,320 --> 00:51:03,320 That is the point. This is a podcast where we challenge ourselves. Yeah. It's a challenging podcast. 534 00:51:03,320 --> 00:51:12,320 So do you guys remember the little cigars, you know, like the... this reminds me of like... 535 00:51:12,320 --> 00:51:20,320 Like Cigarillo or whatever. Like one of those scented flavored cigars, you know, or cigarellos for 536 00:51:20,320 --> 00:51:27,320 like, you know, doing... Yeah. Yeah. Like doing Snoop Dogg episode. Can I tell you about this coffee 537 00:51:27,320 --> 00:51:31,320 real quick? I mean, that's part of your job. Yeah, I'm going to tell you about it real quick. 538 00:51:31,320 --> 00:51:37,320 I didn't even have to do any research. It was roasted and manufactured in the US by World of Coffee 539 00:51:37,320 --> 00:51:46,320 in Starling, New Jersey. Fantastic. Oh, World of Coffee. Great. That was easy. Great. And... 540 00:51:46,320 --> 00:51:51,320 It is... This is interesting. This I don't think we had in the Jim Beam episode. Ingredients are 541 00:51:51,320 --> 00:51:57,320 Arabica coffee, 100%. Cool. Natural and artificial flavors. Yep. And Jack Daniel's Tennessee whiskey. 542 00:51:57,320 --> 00:52:02,320 Wow. It has whiskey in it. Really? As an ingredient. No shit. But it does say it's non-alcoholic, so I don't know. 543 00:52:02,320 --> 00:52:09,320 Denatured. Maybe. Maybe they missed it and then it, you know, evaporates off. That could be. 544 00:52:09,320 --> 00:52:14,320 That makes sense. Yeah. That's interesting. Made with authentic Jack Daniel's Tennessee whiskey. 545 00:52:14,320 --> 00:52:22,320 Oh. Old number seven brand. Amazing. Well, let's try this. Unless it'll make you fall off. Does it count? 546 00:52:22,320 --> 00:52:29,320 No, I don't think so. I think it's been heated. It says non-alcoholic. Worked good. I mean, I'm not looking forward to it, 547 00:52:29,320 --> 00:52:34,320 but I think it'll be alright. Like, looking forward to confronting that. These cutie little cups. 548 00:52:34,320 --> 00:52:39,320 Oh, we're using the baby cups? Well, we could use baby cups. Oh my God. These are the cutest tiny little 549 00:52:39,320 --> 00:52:44,320 Melita mugs that you found. So when I listened back to our Melita episode where I could not stop going on and on 550 00:52:44,320 --> 00:52:51,320 about eBay and the cute little vintage Melita stuff, I went back on eBay again after buying that coffee maker 551 00:52:51,320 --> 00:52:56,320 and then found these cute little Melita mugs. Oh my God. They're adorable. Are these promotional for something cute? 552 00:52:56,320 --> 00:53:04,320 I don't feel like these are practical at all. I have no idea. All I know is I got a set of four really cute little Melita mugs. 553 00:53:04,320 --> 00:53:10,320 So cute. They're like ceramic, tiny little mugs though. I feel like they're espresso. Maybe it's for espresso. 554 00:53:10,320 --> 00:53:18,320 They're slightly bigger than espresso though. Just a little. I don't know. Yeah. Well, I mean, I think Melita doesn't do espresso. 555 00:53:18,320 --> 00:53:24,320 They're about pour over. Right. But it's not a meaningful amount of coffee. 556 00:53:24,320 --> 00:53:30,320 Maybe the idea is that you should drink it and always have a hot cup of coffee. So if you drink through a small amount, then a small amount. 557 00:53:30,320 --> 00:53:36,320 Yeah. Three ounces? Four ounces? These are vintage though. These were like a coffee. This was a cup of coffee back then. 558 00:53:36,320 --> 00:53:40,320 People's hands were so tiny back then. Coffee was really expensive. 559 00:53:40,320 --> 00:53:50,320 Ten drops. Just ten drops. Yeah. I mean, that's like a full fucking cup here with one of these. Anyways. 560 00:53:50,320 --> 00:53:56,320 Not bad. Did you taste it? It's still so hot. Do you feel like you need to add more whiskey to your whiskey? 561 00:53:56,320 --> 00:54:04,320 I actually honestly, I like it hot because it's like so hot. It just kind of tastes like hot coffee. So I like it for that. 562 00:54:04,320 --> 00:54:14,320 Drink it hot. Oh, you know, I think we can mention too that we decided for our Love It or Leave It, we're going to be trying Jack Daniel's whiskey. 563 00:54:14,320 --> 00:54:20,320 Not me, but you guys. I'm going to eat like an ice cream sandwich maybe. Oh, okay. Cool. 564 00:54:20,320 --> 00:54:24,320 Review that next to it. Dipped in Jack Daniel's. Get the full effect. 565 00:54:24,320 --> 00:54:28,320 Jack Daniel's coffee. Yeah. And it's a side by side taste test. 566 00:54:28,320 --> 00:54:34,320 Oh yeah, sorry. We're going to be doing the Jack Daniel's versus Uncle Nearest to see what, you know, if they're the same. 567 00:54:34,320 --> 00:54:38,320 Which one we prefer. Yeah. Love It or Leave It. Yeah. I'm sure we'll look for it. 568 00:54:38,320 --> 00:54:44,320 And I do. And I have some fun little facts about whiskey, Tennessee whiskey specifically. When we get to that. Awesome. 569 00:54:44,320 --> 00:54:48,320 And I'll talk about brewing, no? Distilling. Yeah. Awesome. 570 00:54:48,320 --> 00:54:56,320 So the ground coffee, not, you know, it was a challenged, challenging. I think the smell of the olfactory reveal. 571 00:54:56,320 --> 00:55:02,320 I think it smells kind of like alcohol, but it almost smells a little bit like an extract. Sure. 572 00:55:02,320 --> 00:55:08,320 Like if it were a whiskey extract that you would use in baking. That's what it kind of reminds me of. That's a good one. 573 00:55:08,320 --> 00:55:16,320 It does have that alcohol smell to it, I think. I think that from what I remember, and again, I don't know if my standards have, you know, adjusted. 574 00:55:16,320 --> 00:55:22,320 Right. Since we started this podcast. Your mind has been open. Right. 575 00:55:22,320 --> 00:55:30,320 You're no longer the coffee snob you used to be. I distinctly, I enjoyed this more than I remember the Jim Beam. 576 00:55:30,320 --> 00:55:40,320 Yeah. I remember not really caring for that Jim Beam. Yeah. I would say with the Jim Beam, it took a little bit more additives for me to get to a point where I could give it no bad reviews. 577 00:55:40,320 --> 00:55:46,320 This coffee seeming a little bit easier to no bad review. Out the gate. Right. 578 00:55:46,320 --> 00:55:55,320 It's cooling. I'm getting a little bit more of that like sharp artificial cherry flavor that everybody loves to use. 579 00:55:55,320 --> 00:56:04,320 So, it's not bad, I guess. I think there's like a little bit of bitterness that I think is bothering me more than the flavor. 580 00:56:04,320 --> 00:56:16,320 Like the artificial flavor actually isn't bothering me too much. The, is the bitterness coming from the coffee or from the flavoring? 581 00:56:16,320 --> 00:56:21,320 I think it's coming from the flavoring. I don't care for that. Yeah. 582 00:56:21,320 --> 00:56:27,320 But I'll try to be more positive because that's the feedback I've received from our listeners. 583 00:56:27,320 --> 00:56:37,320 Well, I want to say one thing. I just, this World of Coffee Company, it could be a little bit higher elevate, a little bit of an elevated experience right off the bat. 584 00:56:37,320 --> 00:56:44,320 They are a member of the Specialty Coffee Association of America. Boom. Also the Specialty Foods Association of America. 585 00:56:44,320 --> 00:56:54,320 And they go to the Summer Fancy Food Show. They represent at the Fancy Food Show as well. So they are, their thing is basically toll roasting. 586 00:56:54,320 --> 00:57:03,320 But like meant to be a specialty coffee company. Okay. So, you know, if we're starting. A higher end toll roaster. If you're starting, you know. 587 00:57:03,320 --> 00:57:10,320 We're starting with a better base product before all this artificial flavoring goes in. And real Jack Daniels. 588 00:57:10,320 --> 00:57:15,320 I like that. That is a touch that I really like. 589 00:57:15,320 --> 00:57:23,320 So then it makes me wonder if they're more of a toll roaster. Is this something that Foreman Brown reached out to them and said, hey, we'd like to distribute a coffee. 590 00:57:23,320 --> 00:57:32,320 Like now I'm curious. It doesn't seem like they're the type of company that just goes and licenses the names because just looking on their website, they're like, we make a blend special for you. 591 00:57:32,320 --> 00:57:35,320 What do you want us to do for you? Add your brand. 592 00:57:35,320 --> 00:57:42,320 That packaging is on brand for Jack Daniels. Whereas the Jim Beam just sort of really looked kind of like low quality. 593 00:57:42,320 --> 00:57:48,320 Like, oh, we downloaded their fucking logo and slapped it on the bag. 594 00:57:48,320 --> 00:57:53,320 Whereas this one is a little bit more polished. It's all black. It's all on brand. 595 00:57:53,320 --> 00:57:58,320 So, yeah, I think that they are. I think that they, yeah, they took the step up. 596 00:57:58,320 --> 00:58:06,320 It makes sense that you'd have a better product if Jack Daniels reached out to the coffee company versus like a random coffee company looking for other flavorings. 597 00:58:06,320 --> 00:58:09,320 Yeah, it makes sense that it would be a better coffee. Interesting. 598 00:58:09,320 --> 00:58:18,320 So I think like there's something positive to say if you're like debating between the Jack Daniels coffee and the Jim Beam. 599 00:58:18,320 --> 00:58:24,320 Why is that name so hard for me to remember? I did that whole episode and I can not remember it ever. 600 00:58:24,320 --> 00:58:33,320 Can you guys tell me? OK, so as a non-drinker, I don't really know like what alcohols are all about. 601 00:58:33,320 --> 00:58:44,320 Jack Daniels makes me think of like people, white men who are alcoholics and maybe living in poor places. 602 00:58:44,320 --> 00:58:52,320 I don't know who might possibly be abusive. I don't know if any of that's true. I would like that to be dispelled. 603 00:58:52,320 --> 00:58:56,320 I have an answer for that. Who is this? Who is this alcohol for? 604 00:58:56,320 --> 00:59:04,320 I drink Jack and Coke for the entirety of my early 20s drinking career. Exactly the same here. 605 00:59:04,320 --> 00:59:08,320 I have heard of Jack and Coke is like a drink when I used to be a waitress. 606 00:59:08,320 --> 00:59:13,320 I drink so much of that in my early 20s. I'm probably late teens. 607 00:59:13,320 --> 00:59:18,320 So are you saying it's for young people? My association is incorrect. 608 00:59:18,320 --> 00:59:24,320 Yes, you totally missed the mark. OK, that's what I'm just wondering. I don't know anything about alcohol. 609 00:59:24,320 --> 00:59:30,320 I don't know who's drinking alcohols. Now, if you're asking who's drinking it straight out of the bottle, 610 00:59:30,320 --> 00:59:38,320 probably the character you described. But like how it's actually consumed in the market, I think is closer to just Jack and Coke and younger 20s crowd. 611 00:59:38,320 --> 00:59:48,320 When I came up in the time before Red Bull and vodka, Jack and Coke was kind of you got the caffeine from the Coke to help you. 612 00:59:48,320 --> 00:59:54,320 And like Jack Daniels does like the flavor goes really well with Coke. 613 00:59:54,320 --> 01:00:04,320 And a little squirt of lime too. Oh, yeah. Now that I'm like thinking about the cherry flavor in the coffee 614 01:00:04,320 --> 01:00:12,320 and thinking about Jack Daniels and Coke, like is there a natural hint of like cherry Coke is so good. 615 01:00:12,320 --> 01:00:19,320 Does Jack and Coke kind of kind of like give you a little bit of an impression of that flavor? 616 01:00:19,320 --> 01:00:26,320 Or is the cherry totally just part of the coffee? I don't know. Yeah, I don't know. But now I want to try Jack and cherry Coke. 617 01:00:26,320 --> 01:00:32,320 Oh, man, that would probably be so good. Does anybody with a lime too? 618 01:00:32,320 --> 01:00:39,320 Does anybody drink Jack on the rocks? Like I know a lot of whiskey are neat or rocks. I don't think it's a sipping whiskey. 619 01:00:39,320 --> 01:00:42,320 I don't know. It's not a sipping whiskey in your opinion. You could be wrong, but I don't know. 620 01:00:42,320 --> 01:00:49,320 Well, you can just talk about your own experience as you as a person who drinks some whiskeys. Are you a sipping? Is it to you? 621 01:00:49,320 --> 01:00:54,320 No, it's too sweet. It's too sweet for me. Is it sweet? Yeah. It's a sweeter whiskey. 622 01:00:54,320 --> 01:01:02,320 I don't know if I've ever. I mean, I guess I've probably done a shot of Jack Daniels, but I've never sipped Jack Daniels. 623 01:01:02,320 --> 01:01:08,320 Have you ever had Crown Royal? Yes. That's like the Canadian version of Jack Daniels. 624 01:01:08,320 --> 01:01:15,320 In my opinion, it's like sweet, but not sweet like that, but kind of, you know, in the same neighborhood of like a sweeter alcohol. 625 01:01:15,320 --> 01:01:21,320 OK, we should scale this back and save the rest of this conversation for the Patreon that we're going to release. 626 01:01:21,320 --> 01:01:28,320 So we're bringing it back to the coffee. Yeah. I just wanted to kind of get to what I was trying to get to with that question is like, 627 01:01:28,320 --> 01:01:33,320 who would the Jack Daniels company be marketing a specialty coffee to? 628 01:01:33,320 --> 01:01:38,320 Like who would they want? Like what segment of people are they looking for? 629 01:01:38,320 --> 01:01:45,320 Maybe it was like an attempt to see, hey, can we capture some additional beverage dollars with our brand? 630 01:01:45,320 --> 01:01:51,320 Maybe they started out like a year or so ago that I looked at the Best Buy date on that's January 20, 24. 631 01:01:51,320 --> 01:01:58,320 So it's either roasted a few months ago or it was roasted two years ago because a lot of times these types of coffees have a two year Best Buy date. 632 01:01:58,320 --> 01:02:03,320 So maybe they tried doing a push in the beginning of 2022. 633 01:02:03,320 --> 01:02:06,320 Maybe it hasn't gone that well. So they've been phasing it out. 634 01:02:06,320 --> 01:02:13,320 I feel like I saw Jack Daniels coffee on shelves ages ago, though. I don't think they've just been making it for a year. 635 01:02:13,320 --> 01:02:21,320 But I do feel like it's maybe just sort of a novelty product more than something people are actually drinking every day. 636 01:02:21,320 --> 01:02:28,320 Yeah. Right. Exactly. It's like somebody sees it and they're like, I'm going to try it spontaneously, impulsively. 637 01:02:28,320 --> 01:02:31,320 They're like, it's not bad, but then like never drink it again. Right. 638 01:02:31,320 --> 01:02:38,320 It feels like somebody would buy it for like their dad who likes Jack Daniels and like give it to him as like a Christmas gift. 639 01:02:38,320 --> 01:02:41,320 Yeah, you're right. Like a novelty thing. Yeah. Yeah. 640 01:02:41,320 --> 01:02:45,320 And I'm sure it does all right on that, too. It's like, I mean, the great packaging. 641 01:02:45,320 --> 01:02:50,320 If you're a Jack Daniels fan, I mean, you know, I could see it being popular around Father's Day. 642 01:02:50,320 --> 01:02:54,320 Like, I don't know. Oh, that's a good idea. He looks Jack, but I'm four. 643 01:02:54,320 --> 01:03:01,320 Well, and the packaging they have at World Market, it comes in a nice little canister, like a tin type thing. 644 01:03:01,320 --> 01:03:05,320 So it's actually a really nice gift packaging. Yeah. Yeah. 645 01:03:05,320 --> 01:03:08,320 I mean, does anyone ever buy anything for themselves at World Market? 646 01:03:08,320 --> 01:03:12,320 It seems like the place you go when you have to buy a gift for someone and you don't know what to get. 647 01:03:12,320 --> 01:03:15,320 I know. I mean, I like World Market. It's a fun. It's fun. 648 01:03:15,320 --> 01:03:18,320 I go there every year before Christmas. Oh, smart. Yeah. 649 01:03:18,320 --> 01:03:22,320 They do have some really interesting coffee brewing equipment there. 650 01:03:22,320 --> 01:03:26,320 Yeah. So we when we were doing wedding catering, we bought our pour overs from there. 651 01:03:26,320 --> 01:03:31,320 Really these like cool like lab chemistry look and stand things. 652 01:03:31,320 --> 01:03:37,320 So as much as I wanted to like like dive into this uncle nearest. 653 01:03:37,320 --> 01:03:40,320 No, we should save it for the comparison. I honestly don't think that I need it. 654 01:03:40,320 --> 01:03:43,320 I really think it's not bad black. I finished up my cup. 655 01:03:43,320 --> 01:03:48,320 I know. I mean, maybe just because it's a tiny cup, I'm pro these tiny cups. 656 01:03:48,320 --> 01:03:51,320 Good. Challenge coffees. 657 01:03:51,320 --> 01:03:55,320 I drink mine too. I could rinse out the cup with a little uncle nearest. 658 01:03:55,320 --> 01:03:58,320 I didn't need it. No, you should save it. 659 01:03:58,320 --> 01:04:06,320 I found that I would have I did not get up to do this because I didn't feel like it was so much so that I had to. 660 01:04:06,320 --> 01:04:12,320 But I think I would prefer it with a little tiny bit of sugar and a bit of milk. 661 01:04:12,320 --> 01:04:15,320 That's how my no bad review on this coffee is. 662 01:04:15,320 --> 01:04:20,320 And so for all of you new listeners, Jack Daniels fans that have just joined us, 663 01:04:20,320 --> 01:04:27,320 we have a rating scale where if we drink it black, that's our that's our highest rating that we give it. 664 01:04:27,320 --> 01:04:31,320 And then if we can't say it's not bad black, then we add cream or sugar. 665 01:04:31,320 --> 01:04:36,320 And if it still needs a little bit of help, we add whiskey and then we will drink it. 666 01:04:36,320 --> 01:04:40,320 We are committed to drink it until it tastes good today. 667 01:04:40,320 --> 01:04:44,320 We didn't have to work too hard. So I think that's three. 668 01:04:44,320 --> 01:04:46,320 That's three. Not bad reviews. Black. Good job. 669 01:04:46,320 --> 01:04:51,320 I'm pretty impressed for the quality of a flavored coffee, like what it is. 670 01:04:51,320 --> 01:04:55,320 And especially compared to the Jim Beam. Yeah, I'm pretty impressed. 671 01:04:55,320 --> 01:04:58,320 Right. If there had been whipped cream on the table, I would have used it. 672 01:04:58,320 --> 01:05:01,320 But I got through it. Cool. Cool. 673 01:05:01,320 --> 01:05:04,320 Well, is that is that our episode then, guys? Yeah, I think so. 674 01:05:04,320 --> 01:05:08,320 That went so smoothly. You guys ready to get to drink it? 675 01:05:08,320 --> 01:05:12,320 That's why it went smoothly. The party's about to really continue. 676 01:05:12,320 --> 01:05:14,320 Let's talk. More drinking. 677 01:05:14,320 --> 01:05:21,320 And yeah, join us on Patreon to find out about the showdown between Uncle Nearest and Jack Daniels. 678 01:05:21,320 --> 01:05:27,320 And and then if you're lucky, we might release it as a bonus episode. 679 01:05:27,320 --> 01:05:29,320 Wink. 680 01:05:57,320 --> 01:06:09,320 Thank you for listening to this podcast generously sponsored by Modest Coffee, purveyors of single origin coffee without the snobbery. 681 01:06:09,320 --> 01:06:17,320 Visit www.modest.coffee forward slash no bad reviews to see what they're roasting today. 682 01:06:17,320 --> 01:06:27,320 Enjoy.