Uncle Nearest founder: To disrupt a market, you have to understand it

Fawn Weaver has been building a new global whiskey brand, from Tennessee in the US, called Uncle Nearest, since 2017. When you think of whiskies, famous names that come to mind are probably Jack Daniel's, Jim Beam, Johnnie Walker – the figureheads tend to be white men.

“We know them because we see their bottles," says Weaver, "they’re the Mount Rushmore of whiskey.”

Weaver has created a new whiskey called Uncle Nearest. It stands out because its brand is inspired by the first known African American master distiller, Nathan “Nearest” Green.

He was a former slave who worked very closely with Jack Daniel. It's a story that fascinated Weaver when she first learned about it in 2016, so much so that she relocated from Los Angeles to Tennessee with her husband to learn more about the Green family.

Being an entrepreneur at heart, she saw a chance to create a business around this little-known and under-appreciated historical figure.

Weaver was already a successful businesswoman in Los Angeles, working in the fields of real estate, publishing and restaurants. She runs a company called Grant Sidney.

But she found particular challenges breaking into the whiskey and spirits business.

"I went into an industry where a person of colour, a woman, had never succeeded," she explains to Business Leader.

One issue, for example, was forging relationships with distributors to reach retailers. They were far more accustomed to dealing with men, often cutting deals on golf courses. Weaver recognised these barriers and found strategies to overcome them.

Uncle Nearest hit annual revenues of $100m in 2022 and is fast establishing itself as a global whiskey brand.