Uncle Nearest 1856

Uncle Nearest 1856 Premium Whiskey
Nearest Green Distillery
Shelbyville, Tennessee
ABV: 50%
100 Proof

Last October I was able to travel to Nashville with some of my friends to take the weekend and watch some live sports, eat good food, and learn about the musical influence the city brought to the country. We enjoyed ourselves and I highly recommend it to anyone. On the way out, we stopped by a liquor store so that I could grab as much region specific whiskey that I could fly back with. This is the first whiskey I’ll be reviewing from that batch and it is a great one.

I picked it out based on top 10 lists and the recommendation of the liquor store owner. It wasn’t until the Black Lives Matter movement where I was looking to support various black owned businesses that I discovered the Nearest Green Distillery, owned by Uncle Nearest Inc. is a all-minority led business.

The website tells the story that this whiskey is based on the first known African-American master distiller, Nathan “Nearest” Green. It uses a unique filtering of bourbon through sugar maple charcoal. This process was confirmed to have been brought to Tennessee by enslaved people and taught by Nearest Green to the most famous Tennessee Whiskey maker of all time. Their site didn’t mention who this was but a little more research confirms that it was Jack Daniels which makes a lot of sense why they couldn’t specify.

The whiskey has a very subtle smell to it. I was able to just pick up a little of the maple wood. The taste is very smooth up front and then quickly there is a rush of peppery spice flavor that then tapers off with a sweet finish. The bottle freshly opened was a little more harsh but over a few months it has become a much more balanced experience. I was surprised to find that this whiskey is available across the USA and while it is a little on the pricey side, about 50$ a bottle, I think it is worth it.