The Poor Orphan Who Created World’s Best-Selling Whiskey

Back in 1866 Jack Daniels became the first registered distillery in the United States. Today it is the top selling whiskey in the world and with a brand value of four billion dollars all around the globe people recognize the iconic black and white label on the equally iconic square bottle. For much of the Tennessee whiskey distilleries 155 plus years the story went but as it turns out the tale is actually a little more complicated. Curious to find out how this once hardly known regional whiskey came to be the American icon that it is today? Then make sure to keep watching. Jasper Newton Jack Daniel was the youngest of 10 children born to Calloway and Lucinda Matilda Daniel. While his exact date of birth is unknown it is said he was born in the The family was of Scots-Irish, Scottish and Welsh descent and his paternal grandparents immigrated to the United States in the late 18th century. Jack's mother died when he was a mere infant and years later he wound up as an orphan when his father died in the Civil War. Before his father's passing though Jack had already long left the family home. He had a difficult relationship with his stepmother and things eventually got so bad that he decided to run away. After being taken in by a local pastor and moonshine maker named Dan Call, Jack ended up working and living on his farm in the late 1850s. Independent at an early age the boy worked hard in long hours and the encounter would change his life forever. For much of the brand's history it was said that young Jack Daniel learned his trade from the pastor who took him in. The story went something like this sometime in the 1850s when Daniel was still a young boy he went to work for a preacher slash distiller named Dan Call. The preacher saw promise in young Jack taught him how to run his whiskey still and the rest is history. In 2016 however the brand had some big news to share on its 150th anniversary. They admitted that the official history didn't tell the whole story and one key player in particular had been left out. You see as it turned out preacher Dan Call hadn't been Jack's main teacher. That title actually went to a man named Nathan Nearest Green. Nearest was an enslaved African and not only did he teach Jack Daniel how to make whiskey but he was also the first master distiller for the Jack Daniel's distillery. Nearest's story is a remarkable yet lesser-known tale. Whether he was born into slavery or became one later on isn't certain but what we do know is that sometime around the mid-1800s Nearest began working on Reverend Call's farm and quickly became the master distiller. Born in Maryland around 1820 Nearest was a skilled distiller who specialized in a process called sugar maple charcoal filtering. Called the Lincoln County process it is believed that this filtering was brought in by slaves who were already using charcoal to filter their water and purify their foods in West Africa. The process gave Nearest's whiskey a unique smoothness and his filtered whiskey was the best in the area. Then in the mid-1850s a young white boy came to work at the where Nearest operated. The boy was the youngest child in his family. He had nine brothers and sisters and he had lost his mom to a sudden illness when he was just four months old. The boy's father later remarried but his relationship with his stepmother was so strained that he eventually ran away from home. At the farm the kid worked as a chore boy for the preacher. He milked the cows, fed the pigs and went to fetch water. That boy was of course Jasper Newton Jack Daniel. While young Jack worked as a chore boy for Reverend Call. He kept asking about the smoke coming up from one of the buildings on the property. Day in day out he saw men running back and forth from that area with mules and wagons but he was never allowed to go and check it out himself. Finally after some time the preacher caved into the boy's wishes. He led him to the still and not only did he show him around but he also introduced him to his favorite distiller. Jack this is Uncle Nearest the preacher said. He's the best whiskey maker I know of. Back then slavery and whiskey were deeply entwined. The enslaved men not only made up most of the distilling labor force but they also often played crucial skilled roles in the whiskey making process. Jack was amazed by all he had seen and he quickly took an interest in the business. Little did anyone know it would one day become his life's passion. The Reverend and Nearest showed Jack the ropes but most of that mentoring was done by Nearest who worked side by side with Jack for many years. He taught Jack everything he knew about distilling including his special sugar maple charcoal filtering process. Now the important thing to know is that this special charcoal filtration is the only distinction between bourbon and Tennessee whiskey. So what Nearest was teaching Jack was how to make Tennessee whiskey. As the years went by young Jack continued learning from Nearest and he eventually became old enough to begin selling the whiskey in other nearby towns. He discovered that he was a great salesperson and entrepreneur and the whiskey he sold quickly became the most popular in the area. Amid the Civil War Jack began selling to soldiers but during this time another big change happened in his life. At the age of 15 he lost his father and became an orphan. From now on Jack knew he would have to take care of himself for the rest of his life and wanting to turn his passion into a career he completely dedicated himself to the whiskey making business. Reverend Call was deeply religious and so was his wife and congregation. The main difference however is that they viewed alcohol as a sin whereas he did not. More and more church people started complaining about how the Reverend was working for God on Sunday and making liquor on Monday. And while they had initially let him do his thing for many decades after the Civil War they gave him an ultimatum. Walk away from making whiskey or stop your work as a minister. Not wanting to give up his faith Call sold his business to Jack. The price? $25. Today that amounts to $735. After taking over Jack renamed the distillery after himself and in 1866 the Jack Daniels distillery was officially established. It was the very first registered distillery within the U.S. and with nearest now a free man he was hired by Jack and became the distillery's first master distiller. As you can guess this was an extraordinary offer for such a time and place because even though slavery officially ended with the signing of the 13th amendment in 1865 the racial divide in the American South continued. Over time Jack moved from the original property and he took his growing whiskey business with him. In 1875 he used his inheritance from his father's estate to found a legally registered distilling business. And although nearest retired and did not join Jack to the new location his sons Louis, Eli, and George all followed in their In fact while more than 15 decades has passed since nearest and Jack first began making whiskey together to this day there has always been a member of the green family working at the Jack Daniels distillery. By the early 1900s there was a growing demand for Tennessee whiskey and Jack's business was doing moderately well. But there was one big problem though. The upcoming prohibition era. While prohibition officially went into effect in 1920 the resistance against alcohol began much earlier and after ever-increasing calls for temperance a new wave of attacks began on the sale of liquor in 1906. This movement was led by the anti-saloon league which viewed saloon culture as corrupt and ungodly. In addition many factory owners supported prohibition in the hopes of preventing accidents and increasing the efficiency of their workers. It's safe to say that this wasn't an easy period for Jack but in the end he wouldn't even be around long enough to experience the real prohibition. The reason? Well after trying to break into a safe he broke his toe and caught a nasty infection. Don't worry the safe was his but the accident eventually did take his life. The story goes that after arriving early at work one day Jack couldn't open his safe he kicked it out of frustration and broke his big toe. The blow to his toe gave him a nasty infection and it got so bad that his foot had to be amputated. Unfortunately the gangrene continued to spread throughout his system and he passed away five years later. With no wife or children as heirs Jack left his land and distillery to his nephew Lem Motlow and in the following years Lem and his younger brother Jess carried the distillery through its greatest challenges. Prohibition and the Great Depression. In 1919 prohibition became the law of the land and for the next two decades the brothers weren't able to legally sell their whiskey anymore. They stored their supplies in warehouses in Birmingham Cincinnati and St. Louis and for several years a whole lot of good whiskey wound up doing a whole lot of nothing. After some trying decades Jack Daniels slowly began to gain more fame in the 1950s. The Brown Forman Corporation acquired the brand in 1956 and while it had been growing almost entirely through word of mouth until then now it was time for that to change. In the following years the first successful ad campaigns were launched but it was especially the people who drank it who helped make Jack Daniels what it is today. The beverage became the number one choice of celebrities such as William Faulkner, Winston Churchill, Ava Gardner and Frank Sinatra and little by little Jack Daniels became as synonymous with rock and roll as the electric guitar. In fact Sinatra loved it so much that he even requested to be buried with a bottle of Jack Daniels whiskey and while alive he called Jack Daniels nectar of the gods and sometimes wore a patch for an imaginary Jack Daniels country club. Now that's something neither Jack Daniel nor nearest green could have ever imagined. Today Jack Daniels is doing well. It is the number one best-selling whiskey and the fifth best-selling spirit in the world by value. Duty-free shoppers seem to love the drink and every year nearly 900,000 Jack Daniels cases are sold in duty-free shops and the Jack Daniels distillery well that has become an extremely popular tourist attraction and each year over a quarter million people pay the place a visit. While this number is already very high it becomes even more impressive when you consider the fact that Jack Daniels hometown Lynchburg is a dry county meaning that you ironically can't legally buy the drink where it's made. That tiny little detail doesn't seem to have diminished the brand's success though but my guess is that knowing that his descendants still need to drive out of the county to legally purchase a bottle that carries their ancestor's name would be very frustrating to Jack. This was the story of Jack Daniels the young chore boy turned businessman learned the whiskey making craft from a skilled man named nearest green and he eventually went on to be known as one of the most famous whiskey makers in the world. Did you already know about Jack Daniels story and what did you learn from this story? Share it in the comments and if there's anything you think that we forgot to mention then make sure you share that too I'd love to hear what you have to say. I hope you enjoyed this video and don't forget to take a look at our channel for more inspiring business videos.