Hats and Drinks - A Match Made in Heaven

[RickP]

Suns out, heading towards 78 degrees. Mowed the front yard and decided that was the limit of my ambition today. Pulled on another tropical shirt, topped off with a nice old Knox Premier, and kicking back with a big White Russian

 

[RickP]

Had to finish mowing now that the ground dried out a bit. Grabbed my cheapo Stetson Polyester Lawn Mowing hat. It says its 100% polyester, so does that make it a 100x Polyester fur felt? lol. All done now and relaxing out back with a Celis Belgan White, and one of the old Ben Wade pipes loaded with MacBaren Vanilla Creme aromatic. Pauxatawny Phill saw his shadow yesterday so in theory six more weeks of winter. Im hoping hes wrong and springs just around the corner!

 

[Hurricane Jack]

I recently read Love & Whiskey, the story of friendship between Jack Daniel & (Nathan) Nearest Green; the history of Jack Daniel’s Tennessee Whiskey (Jack Daniel’s Properties now); & the upstart in 2017 of Uncle Nearest Premium Whiskey by the author & descendants of Nearest Green (a $2B company 7 yrs later).

Nearest Green was an enslaved person living on the Dan Call farm when Jack Daniel went to live with the Call’s as a young boy. Like most Tennesseean’s at the time, Dan Call had a still on the farm which would become the original still for Jack Daniel’s Old No. 7 Tennessee Whiskey. When the Civil War broke out Call enlisted with the CSA & in 1863 he deserted to come home after being badly wounded. Call figured he best make good on this new life he had been given so he gave the still to Jack Daniel & Nearest Green who were living on the farm, & went to preaching sermons. Soon Nearest Green had perfected a charcoal filtering system as the final step of distillation. Being a former enslaved person & not able to be a partner in a company or business, Nearest Green would distill the whiskey & Jack Daniel would load a wagon full & take it to town to sell. Nearest Green would be the one to refine the recipe & become the first whiskey blender (Master Distiller today) for the company. It is said that Jack held deep respect for his friend & mentor, & for Nearest’s legacy after his passing.

On a side note, in 1910 there were 6,000 residents in Moore county, TN. Only 300 were in favor of Prohibition.

Nearest & his wife Harriet had 11 children, several who would work for the company in those yrs. Jack never married but he had nephews from his sister (Motlow family) who did the same. Descendants of both men continued to work side by side for generations even after Jack’s passing, until the company was sold to Brown-Forman in the 1950’s. Former employees say with Brown-Forman management is when things started to change. Only 3 descendants of Nearest Green remain with Jack Daniel’s/Brown-Forman today.

Descendants & others among the ownership group of Uncle Nearest Premium Whiskey have turned down an offer of $2B to sell.