I ain’t at all surprised! Jack Daniels has come clean about an important part of it’s own white-washed history admitting that Jack was taught to make Bourbon by an enslaved black man.

So, the official story has always gone something like this…

150 years ago Dan Call, a white moonshine distiller and busy preacher, taught his young apprentice, Jasper Newton ‘Jack’ Daniel, how to make run his distillery and make bourbon. Jack Daniel later opened his own distillery in Tennessee and the famous Bourbon was born to the world!

However the company itself have acknowledged this story is emitting a very very important detail and is a large twisting of the truth.

The true story was well known for a long time by historians. Dan Call had slaves, one of those slaves was Nearis Green. Nearis was ordered to show Jack how to make Bourbon. Nearis was known to be one of the best!

So, when Jack finally opened his own distillery in 1866 (a year after slavery ended) he employed two of Green’s sons. An old photo showing a black man who was thought to be one of the sons shows him sitting as a regular work, not segregated, which shows he was likely held in high esteem. Not that usual for those harsh times.

The image below shows the man who was likely one of Green’s sons.

The company now accepting this history is being celebrated by some but is being taken cynically by others who think it’s a marketing ploy in a time when younger drinkers are thought to be more socially conscious.

The history was likely not celebrated in the past due to the original marketing area of the popular beverage. The south may not have taken to a drink created by a black man!

You can read more of this fascinating history in this New York Times article: http://nyti.ms/290q1sG