Interview with Fawn Weaver, November 4, 2022

WELLS: Hi, my name is J. Wells. I'm an assistant professor of writing, rhetoric, and digital studies and an affiliate faculty member of African American and Africana Studies. Today is November 4, 2022, and it is my pleasure to interview Fawn Weaver as a part of the Black Women in Bourbon Oral History Project which is funded by the United in True Racial Equity Research Initiative. Thank you so much for joining me today.

WEAVER: Yeah, thanks for having me.

WELLS: Of course. So tell me about Fawn before Nearest Premium Whiskey,

WEAVER: Yeah, Fawn before Uncle Nearest Premium Whiskey, pretty much the same as Fawn after Uncle Nearest--(laughs)--Premium Whiskey, but I've been an entrepreneur for about twenty-seven years.

WELL: Tell me about Fawn before Uncle Nearest Premium Whiskey.

WEAVER: (laughs) I was--same person, it just--different focus, but I've been an entrepreneur my entire life and an author for the last fifteen years. And all of that has just kind of come together with this particular project. But 00:01:00Fawn before, Fawn after--same person.

WELL: So I read that you first learned about Uncle Nearest's story from a New York Times article that was written by Clay Risen, who you share a birthday with.

WEAVER: Yeah, luckily (??).

WELL: (laughs) So what did Nearest Green's story mean to you as a Black woman and also a whiskey drinker?

WEAVER: I don't know about as a Black woman, but just as an African American in general. When you're looking at our history in this country because we were not allowed to patent. We weren't able to trademark. There's so much of our history, of our success that we just never understood. Our legacies of excellence that we just never knew about it. And so the idea that there was actually someone that was at the beginning of one of our ubiquitous American brands. That to me meant a lot because up until that point, and I think since then, there hasn't been any person that we could prove. There are different things, like, Lucille 00:02:00down in Houston where her descendants absolutely believe that she created what Pillsbury now has as their biscuits, right, their fast-rising, instant biscuits. They came--Pillsbury came to her first, but we can't prove that, right. And so the idea that there was an ability to not only prove but for the company to actually acknowledge that it was correct, that to me seemed interesting.

WELLS: And so after reading that story, you set out to learn more. And eventually, you put together this team of researchers and archaeologists and archivists. But I want you to take me back to the beginning. Talk to me about your initial steps, your beginning research process.

WEAVER: You know, it's funny because it really was all over the place. So like right now, at this current moment, because I owe a book to the publisher and I've got this research team that's working on it and I needed to get them the files. Well, none of my files are actually titled. (laughs) So I was 00:03:00transferring over like sixty-three hundred files the other day to them to a Google drive. And I was like, "So--(laughs)--I'm still labeling these." I mean, I--you know, so I'm not a researcher in that this is what I do professionally for a living. What I did is I began digging, and everything led me to something else. And so I just followed every path, but I am definitely not a researcher. If you go into my office right now, the files are--you know, if they're labeled, that's because my assistant labeled them. For me, it was gathering enough information to be able to tell the story, to be able to prove the story. So those documents are labeled. The other thousands and thousands and thousands, not so much. But when you're doing--when you're researching or writing the story on a formerly enslaved person, there's very little you're going to find about them. So you have to piece their story together by those who were 00:04:00around them: their children, their grandchildren, the white people around them. That's the only way--you can only piece their story together, for the most part, after the Civil War, right. So then we now have censuses where Black people are listed by their name versus just "negro" under a white person's name. Now we can actually dig in. But prior to that, you couldn't. So it took so much research, but it was only because we couldn't go straight to the subject.

WELLS: And you said you just kept following information, kept following facts. Talk a little bit about the resources it took to follow those paths.

WEAVER: It's so funny because I say that I had this great team of archeologists, archivists, genealogists, historians. No one ever charged me, right. So it was one of those things where I would begin working on something. And I would have to go, say for instance, to the long-time conservator up at Tennessee 00:05:00State Museum. She'd been there for thirty years. And when I reached into her--Carol Roberts, when I reached into her, she got so excited about the project because she had come across Nearest's name before. So then she's up at the museum and she begins sending me so much information, working on this constantly. But she had a job. (laughs) And then after she retired, then she came down here and she'd be here in these offices going through and labeling research and things of that nature. And so every person who helped with this project, they did it because they felt it was important to help with. And that's even the archivists that are at the National Archives across this country. So you have in DC--I had to go to the one in DC, the one in Maryland, the one in Georgia because that's where most of the documents for the South are held. The Library of Congress, the one in St. Louis because Jack Daniel's moved there. And so five, six different archives when you start including Tennessee, 00:06:00and all of those archivists became a part of this project and helping me to do the research.

WELLS: I know when you read the story, you knew--like this is important, this is something that is worth pursuing. Did you know that you were going to get that same support or feeling from other people that you reached out to?

WEAVER: No, I think that this is one the those very unique situations, very unique circumstances where I absolutely--you know, this--I don't know when people are going to be looking at this and whether or not people will still believe in God. But--(laughs)--as for me and my house and what has happened here, no one could actually look at how this has all evolved and how this has come to be and not understand that there's someone greater than us that have been just kind of piecing it together. So all of us, when we talk about it and we see how things intersected, it's very clear we were all roped into this project. I always say we were roped in by Jack because that guy--but 00:07:00we were roped in by somebody that's bigger than us that's controlling this. And so we just all played our part, and I'm honored to have been able to play mine.

WELLS: A part of your research process, of course, was interviewing descendants of Nearest Green. And they told you that most of what they know just came--passed down from the family, right? So can you speak to the value of storytelling in preserving these legacies.

WEAVER: Well, I think that if that hadn't been preserved, I wouldn't have known where to look, right. And so I was able to find the actual--in writing, in the press because people had passed down certain elements of the story. So I'll take, for instance, the fact that we know his name is Nathan. Now, we don't refer to him as Nathan because most enslaved people, when they were no longer enslaved chose their own name if that name was tied to something that--whether it's a slave-owner or, in the case of this area, the largest slave trader was Nathan Bedford Forrest. And he came into this area a lot recruiting 00:08:00confederate soldiers. So Nathan wasn't the greatest of names to have if you're a Black man, right. And so we don't refer to him as that. But it was important for us to know that his legal name began as Nathan so that we could do that research and see what's tied to Nathan. And then work our way backwards to the life in which he chose to live under the name that he choose, which is Nearest.

WELLS: Now, when you're interviewing the family, are--any families in similar situations, like you brought up a family in Houston. These are a group of people who know something to be true and haven't had the support before or may have in their legacy been wronged by institutions, right. So how did you go in and build rapport with the family so that they trusted you with this story?

WEAVER: Well, I think it--a part of it was I had more information than they had, so much more. And so for them, they were so incredibly grateful that 00:09:00I could piece together certain aspects that they just could never figure out. I'll give you an example: Micky (??) up in St. Louis, he's actually not even a blood descendant. Nearest's grandson, Otis, who was one of the ones who moved to St. Louis in order to help Jack Daniel Distillery start up there. Well, his step-son came down to Lynchburg, and I was sharing with him what I had learned about Lynchburg and just how Lynchburg was, which was a pretty amazing town for Black people at that time, for sure. And I was sharing the fact that there were only two stores in that entire square where Black people couldn't go through the front door. Highly unusual in the South. You went through the back door. You weren't allowed to sit at counters. But that wasn't the case in Lynchburg. There were only two stores that stuck to it, and both of them served ice cream so they were trying sort of trying to bring the tourists, right. And he was sharing with me that he had gone into one of the ones that I mentioned to him, and 00:10:00he sat down at a counter. And he was a boy from St. Louis so he's got like his fedora on, his cap, and all the rest of that. He's a city kid. And he sits down, and this white woman comes over and just like looks at--stares at him like death. And he said before she could actually get words out, that a man, a white man, came over and tapped her on her shoulder. And he was clearly the boss, and he said to her, "Do you have any idea who that is?" And she said, "No, sir." And he said, "That's a Green boy." And Micky says that she literally walked away, got his ice cream, brought it back. He sat at the counter. He ate his ice cream. He said, "And I never understood what happened that day until just now." So we were exchanging stories and I was filling in a lot of blanks for them. They had more blanks than they actually had filled in information. And so I went with them and freely gave of the information that I had. They could have 00:11:00taken that information and gone and written a book or done something else with it. But I made sure that every single time I learned something new, I literally would send out a text to the whole family.

WELLS: That's amazing. What advice do you have for other researchers or individuals who want to work with communities from marginalized backgrounds or have a marginalized history?

WEAVER: You have to make sure it's what they want, right. And make sure that it's also something that is important to them. And if it is, then go for it. And if it's not, stand down.

WELLS: That's great advice. So Jack Daniel's family is also directly and indirectly impacted by this work with Uncle Nearest. Can you talk about how you managed the dynamic between those two legacies?

WEAVER: Well, the great thing is is that Jack's family hasn't really been involved in Jack Daniel's Distillery since '78. And, I mean, there 00:12:00were some members that were still involved. I think Hap was involved for a little--a while long after that. But in terms of actually running the distillery, the last one to run the distillery, Reagor Motlow--once he stepped down and he was on the board, and then he passed away in '78. And so you have a pretty long gap where there isn't a true involvement. But what they knew for sure is that Nearest's name should have been preserved. And when they were growing up, Nearest's name was known. It was spoken about at the distillery. It wasn't until Reagor Motlow died that within the next year, the story of Nearest Green disappeared from their distillery. And so they know that it didn't happen under their watch. And you have to remember, when I came into this story, the first time I did an interview was in July of 2017. From the time the original story came out in June of 2016 to the time I did the interview that set the story straight, everything that was being spoken about Jack's 00:13:00family was incredibly negative. Because the press and social media mostly, that then the press picked up, had determined that Jack was a slave owner. That he had stolen the recipe and he had hidden the slave. That was the story that was being regurgitated not just locally, around the world. So imagine your Jack's descendants and you have for your lifetime tried to live a good life, and then all of a sudden your entire family legacy is being drug through the mud at the worst time in US history--2016. The racial divide in 2016, unreal. And so you have this happening at that time. So I think for Jack's family, the fact that you had a Black woman come in and say, "You all have this story wrong. Jack was not only a good guy, but he's possibly the first ally that we've ever seen in business. And like where we can actually prove he was an ally. We can 00:14:00prove that he paid on tenure not race. We can prove that he actually worked hard to have a very diverse staff." Lynchburg was only about thirty percent African American. But the company, Jack Daniel Distillery, was fifty percent Black. So that's very intentional. When you're looking at that photo of Jack Daniel with George Green sitting to his right, Nearest's son, it isn't just that George Green is sitting to the right of Jack Daniel. It's that Jack ceded the center position of the entire photo that was supposed to be around him to the Black man. So that was very clearly Jack saying, "Somebody's going to try to erase this story, I'm not going to let you." And when you see that mirrored also in his biography, you see his descendants that made sure when they talked about it in the press, that they properly credited the enslaved people for bringing the Lincoln County Process to what we now know as Lincoln County. We see 00:15:00them crediting Nearest Green as the first master distiller in writing in the press. And so even though the story was attempted to be erased, it couldn't be. Now, keep in mind if all there was was oral history, then it would be the same as the story of Lucille in Houston where we are pretty sure that she invented instant biscuits, but we can't prove it because Pillsbury has never agreed to that, right. But now you have a situation where everyone is in agreement because they made sure it was in writing.

WELLS: You mentioned that the racial divide at that time really fueled the division between the perceptions of these--this story, right?

WEAVER: Yeah.

WELLS: Like, people wanted to say that Jack Daniel's erased Nearest Green on purpose. And so now we're in a time when racial tensions are again heavily--(Weaver laughs)--fueling some changes--

WEAVER: --yeah--

WELLS: --in whiskey and bourbon industry. And so what advice do you have to people in the industry in terms of, like, how to recover erased 00:16:00legacies without disrupting other legacies?

WEAVER: So it's really difficult, right. Because even with this particular situation, it's not that the owner of Jack Daniel, Brown-Forman, did not know this story it existed. They had the same documents, right. What they didn't know is the story was positive. The only thing that they knew was there was enslaved man that was being credited as Jack's teacher, as his mentor, and then that he was his first master distiller. That information they had. But if you don't know that story is positive, do you really want to bring that out of the closet? And so one of the reasons I've always been able to have a great deal of grace with them in regard to the story as I've done more research, is I have to take off a researcher's hat. I really have to take off the Black person's hat and put on a business person's hat, right. And say, "If this story preceded me by 00:17:00Lord knows how many decades, right--I'm a CEO. I'm only here for ten years. (laughs) Is--do I really want this to be a part of my legacy is bringing forth that this company that I've taken over as CEO, that it was enslaved man who was there at the beginning and all the rest of that? And we don't it's a positive story." As a business person, I probably would've put it back in the closet as well. And so I think that it's a very, very, very tough decision for any CEO to make, for any family member to make at these distilleries. That said, I think it is time that they really have to start making those decisions. They have to go in the files, and I'll tell you why. It's less of a business issue, it's more of a heart issue. Just being around Nearest's family and how it has completely changed their lives to be able to walk into any restaurant, bar, hotel, and say, "I'm a descendant of Nearest Green," and people literally start clapping and people high-fiving. That makes you feel as though you're 00:18:00connected to greatness, right. And so all of these companies that are refusing to do that, what they're really doing is keeping an entire generation from being able to really be connected to that level of excellency. When we talk about balancing out the wealth in America, when we talk about wealth equality in America. You can't do that if one set of the population can directly connect to greatness, which means that they've seen it. They can reach for it. It's been in their family before. And then you have an entire other population that all you're doing is linking them to enslaved people. That you're not showing they ever had any power. You're not showing they ever had any--that they ever did anything of any real significance. But that isn't true. And we actually could prove that if that if the companies that these enslaved people helped 00:19:00build would simply tell the truth.

WELLS: Okay. So I have another question I want you to keep your business hat on for. So when the stories are not positive, which we know there are a lot of brands who are going to have to confront that, how should they go about still acknowledging it and not just keeping it hidden? Because I think that's a big part of the problem, too, is when there is intentional erasure, especially now.

WEAVER: Well, number one, you have to be very intentional about how you tell the story. And you need to surround yourself with people of the race in which the story you are about to tell to make sure that you are saying it in a way that is, one, sensitive; two, acknowledges the past of the company. But also acknowledges that it's 160 years later and that given that same situation, we would not do that, right. And so you have to stand, as a CEO, and say, "That was wrong, but I would never do that." And focus people on what it's for 00:20:00and what's in front and what they have done now that is good. But to be so afraid of your past, it just--I don't know. I think that what a lot of these companies will find is just that ownership will bring them in more customers because they're going to appreciate that they did the hard work. And getting in front of the world and saying, "Hey, an enslaved person helped us to build this company." But then also making it right as much as you possibly can. I think a lot of the fear for these companies is reparations and will we be sued, and all the rest of that. And the answer is probably, yeah, you'll probably be sued but you'll win. That--so just deal with the headache because at least those family members where it really matters to them --when you have families that 00:21:00do that where it's, you know, someone decides to sue or whatever, it's usually like a couple of them. And the rest of the family members are actually appreciative that they now have the information, that they now know the story. But it's a challenge, it's hard. But we have to do hard things. And if there are companies that are white and you know there was an enslaved person that was at the beginning of your company or was instrumental throughout your early years of building your company, you've got to go back and give them credit.

WELLS: That's a--completely agree. I want to transition back to family and talking with the family members. So after you conducted research and interviewed some of the descendants, you decided--you made the decision to create a bottle. And so I want to hear more about your process from book to bottle.

WEAVER: Yeah, from book to bottle. Well, book is being done now. And it's--it was very interesting because when I began doing the research--first 00:22:00of all, very first day I am in Lynchburg, I learn that the farm where Jack grew up and where the original distillery No. 7 was and where Nearest taught Jack how to make whiskey, that the farm is for sale. It had been for sale for fifteen months and nobody bought it. Still, to me, the strangest thing ever because we now have it registered with the National Registry, the National Historical Registry, whatever that thing is. I didn't do it--(laughs)--but it's official. And so--but, I mean, it took me two seconds to know, "This is history. Why has no one bought this property?" So I'm there to do research for four days. And a day into it, I've bought a 313 acre property in the hills above Lynchburg, Tennessee, right. So that changed everything. Like, "What the hell are we going to do with this house?" It's not like we were super, super wealthy people where we could just buy this and then restore it and have it and not 00:23:00actually do anything with it. And so a lot of this stuff just came very naturally as what makes sense. Like, all of these different paths seemed to be kind of colliding as to we're supposed to not just write the story, but we're to make sure that the story is continuing to be told hundreds of years from now. And what you all are doing is absolutely amazing because it allows for this oral history to continue to be told. But we also have to make sure that there's something that people are literally looking at. They're reminded of the reason why we're still talking about Johnnie Walker and Jack Daniel and Jim Beam is because we're looking at their bottles every time we go into a restaurant, any time we go into a bar. And so it was very clear once I learned more about Nearest's contribution, that it would be a disservice to not allow for his name to also be side by side with the rest of those men.

WELLS: Tell me about how you made the decision about the labeling and designing the label.

WEAVER: I'm a creative person. And just in--just in general, it was really what felt right. I go off of my gut 99.9 percent of the time, and it was just a matter of what felt right. And, also, we didn't have a ton of money. So we couldn't do these custom bottles that people do and we had to use like a regular stock bottle. Now we've made our own bottles, but this is quite a few years in. In the beginning, we're taking a stock bottle. So how do we make it not look like another stock bottle that's on the shelf? Could be even right next to it. How do we make it look different? And so that labeling, all of that, was really a part of making it look like it was an expensive bottle even though we couldn't afford to buy an expensive bottle.

WELLS: I know from a talk that you did with Inc.'s What I Know podcast, you said before founding Uncle Nearest Premium Whiskey, you didn't know much about the whiskey industry. So tell me how you--and I know that you're a 00:25:00learner, you like to learn. So how did you learn? Like how did you teach yourself about the industry?

WEAVER: Well, first, it was my drink of choice, so that's helpful. What I didn't realize until I came into the industry--my drink of choice was E.H. Taylor Single Barrel strength. So I always drank it neat. I wasn't a cocktail person. And it was just--I'd sit at a bar, that was my call. Well, when that became more difficult to get, I asked the bartenders, "Well, what's similar?" And they'd say, "Well, get Blanton's," and I'd get Blanton's. And when that started getting difficult to find, I'd say, "Well, what should I get?" And they'd say, "Well, get Eagle Rare." So there--I mean, I think there were five different bourbons that I loved that I was drinking. And it wasn't until I came into the industry that I found out that Buffalo Trace made all of them. (laughter) So shout out to Buffalo Trace. I clearly have a type. And so just that was one of the introductions into understanding how the industry works. And the fact that you can take a single recipe and literally have five different bottles 00:26:00and brands from that single recipe just based on where you put it in the warehouse, where you store it, where you proof it down to, how you blend it. I mean, there's so many ways to manipulate bourbon and to make it better. And it's very--it was very interesting once I realized you could literally distill a bunch of distillate, put it into barrels all at the same time, and every single one could come out tasting differently. That, to me, is just fascinating.

WELLS: What's your earliest memory with whiskey?

WEAVER: My earl--oh, gosh--is I hated scotch. People kept trying to get me to taste scotch, and I just did not like scotch at all. That's how I fell in love with E.H. Taylor Single Barrel is that we had a friend that every time we went over to their house, he had a new fancy scotch. And he's like, "This is the one." It'd be like Oban and Macallan 6--whatever--16, 20, I don't know. And it would be all these different scotches, and I never liked any of them. 00:27:00No matter how expensive they were, no matter how awarded they were, I just didn't like the peatiness. But I didn't know at that time that's what I didn't like, but I just didn't like it. And we went to a--just a regular really nice liquor store, and I said, "Listen, there's a person who loves scotch, I hate it. We're going to his house, I need to bring a gift. Can you point me to something that's not scotch--(laughs)--that he'll probably like?" And he pointed me to E.H. Taylor Single Barrel strength. And so that's my first memory with bourbon. And I sat there sipping on it all night. This is when I also learned that your pH--everybody's pH interacts with alcohol differently. And so some people can sip on a little bit of bourbon and literally be laid out. But they can sip on vodka all night and no problem. I can't have even a little bit of vodka, like--but I can literally sip on bourbon, barrel strength, all night--zero buzz. It's just my pH balance, so I'm a bourbon girl.

WELLS: Switching from the consumer side to you being a contributor to 00:28:00the whiskey industry, what was your first impression of the industry?

WEAVER: Yeah. It's really white. (laughter) It's--it's really white. It's a lot of men. It's a lot of fake stories, like, you know, a lot of made-up stories.

WELLS: What do you mean fake stories?

WEAVER: There's a lot of made-up stories. Most--I mean, most of the stories are a little bit like rappers, pretty exaggerated.

WELLS: About like brand or just, like, ego? Or--

WEAVER: No, literally just most whiskeys whether it's--

WELLS: --okay--

WEAVER: -- what's in the bottle or the story behind the bottle or how it came to be. What Uncle Nearest has done is very unique in that the story was so well-researched and it came before the whiskey. So then it was a matter of literally bringing a whiskey into a bottle in which the story was already set. Well, most of the brands, they start with the whiskey and then they have to go chase the story. Well, if the story's not that interesting, then you start embellishing on the story. And so most of the stories in bourbon are 00:29:00pretty embellished--(laughs)--and that's just--that's the just the nature of it.

WELLS: When you have conversations with people, do you--so have you researched other people's stories or brands or--

WEAVER: --oh, God, no. I absolutely will not. And even when it--even when it comes up to me, I'm like, "I don't even want to know. I don't want to know." And, no, I stick to--I am a subject matter expert in two brands: Uncle Nearest, Jack Daniel. That's it. You can ask me questions about both of those, and I'm going to know more than anybody else about those two brands. Any other brands, I couldn't tell you anything.

WELLS: So you said that the industry was very white and still is. How were you treated as a Black woman?

WEAVER: I came in like a wrecking ball. I don't know. I tell people all the time, they're like, "Did people treat you well?" I'm like, "I don't know." (laughs) I didn't--I didn't pause to ask. It just--I was so mission-driven, so focused, that when I came into a room it was with purpose. It was with intentionality. I was not there to be cute. I wasn't there to make 00:30:00friends. I was there to really get done what I have been placed here to do, and that's to cement the legacy of Nearest Green. So, for me, if Nearest Green had been making lemonade, right now we would be talking about lemonade. It just so happened that he was making bourbon.

WELLS: You've mentioned elsewhere that you faced a lot of blockage. Like, what were those blockages or challenges that you experienced?

WEAVER: That I have? No, I didn't face a lot blockage there at all. There were--people weren't used to hearing from a woman in this industry, and my entire leadership team are women. And so in the beginning, no one was returning our phone calls and no one was returning emails. And we realized--when my team came to me, my leaders who are all women, and I realized they were having the same problem. And so I called my husband, and I said, "Hey, I just want to test out a theory I have." I told you I'm 99.9 percent gut, "I just want 00:31:00to test out a theory." And I had my leaders literally send me an email with the people they had been trying to call for weeks, in some cases for a month, and leaving messages, and to say what exactly it is that they were trying to get from them. And this is stuff like, "We need bottles. We need corks. We need distributors." We needed liquid because for the first four years we were sourcing it and blending it ourselves. And so there are all these different things, and no one was calling back. So my husband--I got the list. He began making the phone calls. And in every single scenario, every single phone call, he either got through immediately or they called him back by the end of the day. And at some point in those conversations, there would be, "Do you play golf? Do you like beer? Want to go grab a beer?" And so he called me after, like, maybe two days of this, and he's like, "Babe, we're like Remington Steele." (laughter) But the reason why I don't look at that as blockage is because it didn't slow me down for two seconds. It didn't slow our team down. And so it was 00:32:00more of a--for me, I looked at it as an absolute benefit because we flew under the radar in an industry that it's very difficult to fly under the radar. Nobody saw us coming because nobody expected anything from us, and I think that that played really to our advantage.

WELLS: So after testing your theory and being right, how did your--what changes did your team make in those phone calls, like, just to ensure, like--

WEAVER: --none--

WELLS: --we're getting calls back?

WEAVER: None. Send it to Keith, everything. Any person who didn't call us back right away, we sent it to Keith. We didn't even bother with it because we didn't have time for that. And so Keith would make the phone call and he'd say, "Can I put you with my colleague?" Done. So he was literally playing--and he would do--and, again, I think that would really--I mean, people will watch this and, like, you know, be irritated about that on our behalf. Trust me, I wasn't irritated in the least bit. Because, for me, if I spend any time being irritated or frustrated, that's energy I'm not spending towards solutions, problem-solving, and getting the job done. And so not for two seconds 00:33:00did that bother me.

WELLS: Were there other instances where you had him--where you basically used him as the voice or face just--

WEAVER: --oh--

WELLS: --to get things done?

WEAVER: I don't think people--number one, if you look at any interview that I did in the first two years of this company--and it was a lot of interviews. You're talking about hundreds of interviews. I was never labeled as CEO. I titled myself chief historian for every interview because I knew it would be easier for people to digest that. You're talking about the bourbon industry where for a very long time they thought that the only people who were really drinking bourbon were white men and everyone who was marketing to them were white men and everyone who was owning the companies, white men. And so you had this very small--you know, thirty percent of the population is white men--(laughs)--and so it was kind of controlling that whole--the whole conversation around bourbon. And then you have me coming into it and saying, "All right, you all keep talking to thirty percent. I'm going to talk 00:34:00to all hundred, and let's see how this works out." The good news is now they're all talking to all hundred because they're like, "What the hell? What just--where did she come from?" And people tell me all the time, "You should not have been able to build what you were able to build, what you've been able to build. You just should not have been able to." And I think the reason I was able to is because I came into it and said, "I'm going to talk to a hundred percent. A hundred percent are going to love this juice. A hundred percent are going to love this story. A hundred percent are going to back this brand." And that's what happened. But, yeah, any person that seemed to like want to bro out or, "Dude"--"Babe, can you, like--" and didn't bother me at all. Now for him, he's like, "I have a job." (Wells laughs) I mean--I mean, he's an executive vice president for Sony Pictures, so he's like, "Babe, I love you, but--(laughs)--I have work to do." But it worked out. It worked out really well. And I think there was one person that I'll never forget. It was a distributor that told him--it's really funny. The distributor told him, "You made--you did like the cardinal sin. You brought your wife into your business." (laughs) 00:35:00And my husband, he says, "My wife brought me into her bus--okay, that's okay." And, you know, it just--(laughs)--but it was one of those things I think because he knew it didn't bother me, that it definitely got under his skin more than it did mine. But I think the fact that I was so focused and so mission-driven and was not going to allow that to deter me for two seconds, then we just--it worked for us. And it allowed us to fly under the radar for--you got a chief historian trying to start a whiskey brand. Nobody expected anything from us.

WELLS: Were there ever exchanges like that where you decided like, "You know what? I'm not even going to work with this company or this brand or this business. Like, we're just going to put our money elsewhere."

WEAVER: No. I have a job to do. I don't mind using assholes to do it. (laughter) It doesn't bother me. Like, this is--this is important work. And if I get hung up on other people's worldviews in the process, I won't get it done.

WELLS: So talk to me about the business side. So what was the process for beginning to sell the whiskey?

WEAVER: Beginning to sell it? You mean going through distributors or for consumers to buy it?

WELLS: Consumers to buy it.

WEAVER: That was--I mean, I was really, really fortunate in that my first company twenty-seven years ago was a PR firm. And so this entire company has been founded on a foundation of telling the story, but telling the story through the press and making sure that we always have angles of the story that are interesting to them. I think for a lot of people when they have a brand and they hire a PR firm, their thought process is, "My brand is great, so you should tell the story." Mine entire thought process on PR is different. It is you are a newspaper or a television show or a magazine. Your job is to get 00:37:00readers so that your advertisers pay you more. So if I can help you to get more readers or to get more viewers by sharing a story that they'll care about, then you and I are helping one another. And so our PR, how we built this, is--I mean, if you just put in "Uncle Nearest" and click on just the press section or news, that thing's going to go on for hundreds of pages and it's still not going to run out. And it's been that way for six years running now. And it's because I understood that this is about cementing a man's legacy. That means that it can't just be the bottle that is doing it. It means that his name has to be said over and over and over again in every outlet around the world multiple times before people will even recognize who he is. And so for us, we're very fortunate that we came out of the gate with people talking about who we are. Number one because they didn't see us coming, and they didn't see us coming because of 00:38:00the way that we came. But also, once we arrived we didn't tiptoe in the least bit. We literally came and made sure people understood we're not here to sell a whiskey, we're here to cement a legacy. And that's what we're here to do, and we went after it.

WELLS: Tell me about your hiring--or choosing your leadership team. Your leadership team is very--they get a lot of credit because you have an all-female leadership team.

WEAVER: Yeah, the crazy part is it was the press that pointed it out to me. I never realized it because my company doesn't have a hierarchy at all. And so if I'm sitting in a room, it's not like it's all women there. It's women, there's men. And it wasn't until I was talking to a member of the press and they were asking me about my executive team, and I was naming each person and what it is that they did. And this member of the press said, "Did you just name all women?" And I had to pause for a second, I was like, "I guess I did." Like, that's literally how I figured it out. But I treat everyone the same no 00:39:00matter where you are in the company. So it had never dawned on me that all the men in my company reported to women. It was not in the least bit intentional. You're sitting in Nearest Green Distillery. I think I have one of the most phenomenal leadership teams of any distillery. It wasn't until maybe three or four weeks ago when I was writing down all of our actual, like, top-level leaders that everyone reports into, and realized that there are eleven of them. And of those eleven, eight of them are--seven of them are African American, one is Puerto Rican, two are--white male, white female, both LGBTQI. I literally only have one straight white male--(laughs)--in leadership and it's the head of security, but that wasn't something I set out to do. It's just that I don't look at color when I am choosing who is going to go into leadership roles so it's whoever has the heart. It's whoever is most passionate about it. And 00:40:00for here, if you walk through our distillery, every race under the sun. So you're not going to know the difference. You're not going to walk in there and think, oh, this a Black brand, or, this is a female brand, because everybody is in there both on the consumer side and on the team side.

WELLS: Can you say more about the characteristics that you look for when you're hiring for leadership? Because a lot of the people who view this interview are going to be folks who are just interested--maybe not specifically in the whiskey industry, but into excelling into leadership roles.

WEAVER: I look for entrepreneurs. That, to me, is really important. I'm not a micromanager. I only want to borderline manage you. What I want to do is give you a goal and I want you to figure out how to get to that goal. I want you to succeed in that goal. And I don't care if you do it at two o'clock in the morning, two o'clock in the afternoon. I don't care if you do it from Singapore or if you do it from New York. You can do it from wherever you want to do it, but this is--and that's just my leadership style. And so my entire 00:41:00company are entrepreneurs. They take a hold of whatever it is that their job assignment is and they own it. They fully own it. And they come to me. And I'm going to be the first one there if they need any help, if they run into any problems, if they need ideas, if they need creative ideas, I'm on speed dial for them. But, overall, when I'm talking to my team members, it's about fam--it's about their family, it's where they're going on vacation, it's usually--they own their jobs. And that's what I look for. So if you're looking for me to coddle, I got plenty of distilleries to send you to--(Wells laughs)--this is not one of them.

WELLS: Okay. I want to talk about--transition to talking about your success overall--

WEAVER: --yeah--

WELLS: --because you have a long history of success. So in a Food & Wine article, you said, "When you're an African American or a woman who has figured out a pathway to success within an industry that's historically been reserved for white males, it becomes your responsibility to pull as you climb, 00:42:00at least that's how I look at it." So talk to me more about how you figured out this pathway to success in multiple positions across multiple industries.

WEAVER: I think the--people don't give enough credit to simply having confidence when you walk through the door. And I think that people assign confidence to how much they know. I assign confidence to simply being confident. That if I don't know it, I can find the information. Period. Like, I don't have to know all the information for me to walk into a room and be confident. Every bit of information I need is to be found, and so I can look for that. And so I think going into any industry doing anything that I've ever done, I've walked in with an enormous amount of confidence. That if anybody can do this, I can do this. And so I think that that is what has allowed me to do so much. And so now I try to instill that confidence into women and people of color in specific because I think we really struggle with that. And when someone mentions imposter syndrome, I'm like, "Come shadow me for twenty-four hours. You'll get over that 00:43:00real fast." Like, it is--it's one of those things where I--I think that that is the first and foremost. When you're talking to entrepreneurs in general, if they have nothing else, they have that one thing. We're all like--entrepreneurs across the board are so different--and I'm talking about the really successful ones, right. We're very different in how we may see things, what time we wake up in the morning, what we eat--I mean, I am positive I eat more McDonald's and fast food than your average, you know, high-performing CEO. That's how I roll, that's what I enjoy. And so I think that the thing though that is very similar when you're talking about any high-functioning CEO is they have a--or founder entrepreneur--is they have a high degree of confidence.

WELLS: Are there people you have identified as mentors along the way?

WEAVER: No, unless you want to include J.D. Rockefeller, Andrew Carnegie, people like that--so, really, Napoleon Hill--really not Napoleon, but everyone who he interviewed. so Henry Ford, Benjamin Franklin, all of those titans, 00:44:00if you will. Over five hundred millionaires, Napoleon Hill interview during his time to deduce the common denominator between them. And so I've spent a lot of time reading. But all of my mentors have been in books.

WELLS: Speaking of books, so I know that you are also a New York Times best-selling author.

WEAVER: Yeah.

WELLS: And so I'm about to nerd out. I want to hear about your writing process. (laughter)

WEAVER: You know what? Each one has been completely different, right. So right now, the way that I'm doing this, I'm having to go back and pull history that--I mean, things that I researched back in 2016, I'm now having to remind myself of now, right, six years later. And so that's not a normal process for me. For Happy Wives Club, for my first book, I traveled the world, I interviewed twenty couples married twenty-five years or more--happily married twenty-five years or more to deduce the common denominator. So I was in twelve countries, 00:45:00six continents. I wanted to go to all seven, but Antarctica was just a headache to try to get to that. But you're talking to people from different religions, different backgrounds. And so, for me, I had a tape recorder there, I had--and that was it. I would literally just engage in conversation in someone's house across dinner, and then I'd come back and I would transcribe it. Now, if I could do this again, I'd have someone else transcribe it. But, at that time, I didn't know that was a thing. So I transcribed it myself. And I'm transcribing it onto yellow pads and then I went back through and just highlighted the similarities. And I was just looking for a single similarity, a single common denominator that I could point to say, "That's the secret of a happy marriage." And what ended up happening is there were twelve common denominators among all of the couples, which absolutely blew my mind. And that became--so that book was just totally different. The second book, 28 Days to an Argument-Free Marriage, wasn't even meant to be a book. That was something I wrote for my little sister when she was getting married. Because she asked how my husband and I--now have 00:46:00been married almost twenty years next year, so nineteen years this year. And at the time we had been married, I think, ten years. And she was getting married, and she wanted to know how my husband and I had such a peaceful marriage. And so I said, "Hey, babe, let's write, like, our top-ten things for her." And then when we did that, we realized--I think we ended up with like twenty-eight things that we did that we didn't even realize that we did but it's what kept our marriage peaceful. And I was like, "Well, it's so many things. This is like days. So how about I write like a little journal thing on each one?" So that's how that--completely different. So all three of these books, how they came together are entirely different.

WELLS: What do you enjoy the most about writing?

WEAVER: You know, I just love to write. I've--it's always been cathartic to me even when I was a little girl. I would just write, and I was always very good at it. And so it wasn't anything I had to try. And, for me, I know a lot of people try things that are hard for them. I'm not that person. I lean into 00:47:00what I'm naturally really good at, and I just do it over and over--(laughs)--and over again. And so writing is something that came natural to me, so I just do it.

WELLS: When you were a little girl writing, did you imagine yourself to be an author?

WEAVER: My mom was an author. And so it's not that I imagined myself to be an author, I didn't even want to be an author, but it was I knew I was very good at writing.

WELLS: You've mentioned a couple of gems, for sure, in this interview. And one of the things you just said is, like, you leaned into things that you were good at. Like, you don't necessarily have to try things that are hard just to get somewhere. So what other advice to do you have specifically for Black women who are trying to--who are going to enter an industry that may be male-dominated or may be predominantly white?

WEAVER: Lean into your strengths. So I--and this is--and I've really, really taught this to every person that works for me and works alongside me is literally focus on your strengths. Focus on your strengths. Do not 00:48:00focus on your weaknesses because whatever you focus on, grows. And I think we don't really recognize that. And so we spend so much time trying to fix something, and what people will find is the more they try to fix something the worse it seems to get because they're focused on it. But what happens if you focus on your strengths and it's all about making your strengths stronger, your weaknesses start to pull up until they become strengths as well. The best example I always give is just out of pure vanity reasons, I have always had a six-pack--always--because I always do my hundred sit-ups at night and I do my yoga just for van--it's absurd because I never actually--well, every now and again I'll show it, just to say, "It's still here. At forty-six, it's still here." But I've never cared about my back. It's never been a thing. But because I was always focused on my abs, my back is incredibly strong. And so I look at it the exact same way. As you focus on your strengths, and even the 00:49:00weaker things that are just--they're all connected--they'll end up pulling up with you. So, for me, whenever I'm talking to women, whenever I'm talking to people of color, "Stop trying to fit a round peg in a square hole. Figure out what you were meant to be here to do, fig--and you'll know that just based on what you were really good at as a kid." The things that we do that we find a great deal of joy in now are those things that we were really good at when we were young. I was a leader out the gate. Drove my parents crazy, drove my teachers crazy. But every single person who knew me as a child is like, "Yep, that makes sense." And I was always a writer, and I enjoyed that very much. And I always--in school, when I'd get in trouble for not doing the assignments when they were, like, reading novels because I preferred to read Encyclopedia Britannica because I had the whole set. Like, these are--(laughs)--and so these are all things that I leaned into as a kid, and as an adult I continue to lean into it. And so, for me, I have a great life. I love what I do. I 00:50:00love my life, my marriage, my family, my siblings. But I think a part of that is I'm not spending any time fighting against--I'm not going against the grain, if you will. I am leaning into what it is I'm here to do.

WELLS: That's awesome advice. Thank you. Is there anything else that I haven't mentioned that you think we should talk about?

WEAVER: Oh, no. I never have any of that. People always ask that question. My answer is always the same, "No, I only care what you had questions about," (laughter) so no.

WELLS: Okay, well, thank you so much for--

WEAVER: --thank you--

WELLS: --sitting down with me. I really enjoyed talking with you.

WEAVER: You, too. Thank you, J., I appreciate you.

[End of interview.]