Speaker 1: Right now, it's time for the Way Black History Fact.
Speaker 1: In Today's Way Black History Fact is sponsored by Underground
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Speaker 1: gonna share from history dot com. This is not my opinion,
Speaker 1: this is history dot com. So and dig it up
Speaker 1: with them Jack Daniels. For those of you who like
Speaker 1: to get faded. Jack Daniel stands as one of the
Speaker 1: most iconic American brands and the most popular spirits in
Speaker 1: the world. Yet, while the whiskey and its founder have
Speaker 1: become dominant names in American liquor, lord, the person perhaps
Speaker 1: most responsible for its success, an enslaved man named Nathan
Speaker 1: Nearest Green, who taught Jack Daniel the art of whiskey distillation,
Speaker 1: went unacknowledged for more than one hundred and fifty years.
Speaker 1: Researchers are discovering that the role enslaved people played in
Speaker 1: America's early whiskey making went beyond manual labor like gathering
Speaker 1: grain and building barrels. Distillation was a no te, curiously
Speaker 1: laborious and tedious work, and some plantation owners, including George
Speaker 1: Washington and Andrew Jackson used enslaved workers to run their distilleries.
Speaker 1: According to American spirit writer Fred Minnick, author of Bourbon,
Speaker 1: The Rise, Fall and Rebirth of an American Whiskey Brokers,
Speaker 1: at auctions of enslaved people, folk would notaate distiller trained slaves,
Speaker 1: many of whom previously worked on the Caribbean sugarcane plantations
Speaker 1: and contributed to the distillation of sugar's byproduct molasses to
Speaker 1: create run These skill sets earned premiums for their owners
Speaker 1: and made them attractive to buyers. Overall, However, documentation of
Speaker 1: enslaved workers' contributions to early American whiskey production remained sparse,
Speaker 1: as few enslavers saw fit to credit their achievements for posterity.
Speaker 1: Little is known about Green's early years, beyond that he
Speaker 1: was born in Maryland in eighteen twenty. It's not clear,
Speaker 1: for instance, if he was born into bondage or was
Speaker 1: enslaved later in life. What is clear is that by
Speaker 1: the mid eighteen hundreds, Green had gained renown as a
Speaker 1: skillful whiskey distiller in Lincoln County, Tennessee, so much so that,
Speaker 1: as in slavers, the Landis and Green Company often rented
Speaker 1: Green out to area farms and plantations, eager to partake
Speaker 1: in his whisky making skills. It was in this capacity
Speaker 1: that Green met young jasper Jack Daniel and forged what
Speaker 1: would become an iconic partnership. Green taught Daniel sugar maple
Speaker 1: charcoal filtering, known today as the Lincoln County Process, a
Speaker 1: universally accepted critical step in the making of Tennessee whiskey.
Speaker 1: With this process, whiskey is filtered through wooden charcoal chips
Speaker 1: before being placed in casks for aging, a technique food
Speaker 1: historians believe was inspired by similar charcoal filtering techniques used
Speaker 1: to purify water and foods in West Africa. The process
Speaker 1: imparted a unique smoothness of flavor that set Jack Daniel's
Speaker 1: whiskey apart from his competitors. As years passed, Daniel continued
Speaker 1: to learn from Green, building friendship with his mentor and
Speaker 1: eventually perfecting the Lincoln County process and selling his whiskey
Speaker 1: throughout Lynchburg and surrounding towns. Lynchburg Gang all Right. By
Speaker 1: the time the Civil War began, Daniel had developed into
Speaker 1: an adept salesman, pedaling a smooth brand of Tennessee whiskey
Speaker 1: to soldiers and cementing his varietal as the most popular
Speaker 1: in the area. Once the war ended an emancipation came,
Speaker 1: Daniel bought Calls Distillery, renaming it after himself. Shortly after,
Speaker 1: Daniel opened a larger distillery on a nearby plot of Landberg.
Speaker 1: Green's sons, Louis, Eli and George also began work. Their
Speaker 1: employment began a tradition of more than seven generations of
Speaker 1: the Green family working either with or for the Jack
Speaker 1: Daniels brand. So another one of those stories that you
Speaker 1: know we're gonna spend the second part of the show
Speaker 1: talking about Black history and Black History Month, and for
Speaker 1: those that can't stick around, at least this gives you
Speaker 1: an idea of why we think that's important.