Whether you prefer your whiskey neat, straight up, or on the rocks—you’re sipping on American history. In the mid-1800s, the first African American master distiller on record in the US, Nearest Green, taught Jack Daniel how to make whiskey in Lynchburg, Tennessee. As an enslaved man, he refined the Lincoln County process, a charcoal filtration method still used today, giving Tennessee whiskey its distinct flavor.
Join MOFAD in partnership with The Greene Space for a virtual exploration of the overlooked history and longtime traditions of African American distillers with Fawn Weaver, the CEO of Uncle Nearest Whiskey, and Garrett Oliver, Brewmaster of The Brooklyn Brewery. After a whiskey cocktail demo with mixologist and author of TIKI: Modern Tropical Cocktails Shannon Mustipher, the panelists will discuss entrepreneurship and the legacy of Black distillers and brewers.
SHANNON MUSTIPHER
Shannon Mustipher is a spirits educator, cocktail consultant, and expert on the topic of rum and cane spirits. In 2014, she became the Beverage Director of Glady’s Caribbean in Brooklyn, and has poured cocktails in settings ranging from neighborhood pubs to Michelin restaurants.
In addition to working with a number of spirits brands across a range of categories, she is one of the founding members of Women Leading Rum, an organization dedicated to providing education and professional development for industry and trade professionals. In 2018, she launched Women Who Tiki, a tropical cocktail-centric pop up that gathers a team of women bartenders to share their talents and collaborate on creating a one night only experience, which has been featured at Rumba Seattle, Tiki Oasis, and NY Cocktail Expo.
Shannon's writing, cocktail recipes, and opinions have been featured in a number of publications, including Punch.com, GQ.com, Liquor.com, New York Magazine, and the Huffington Post, and she has been a panelist and presenter at Bar Convent Brooklyn, NY Rum Fest, The Museum of Food and Drink, and Food Book Fair. She currently resides in Brooklyn, NY, and enjoys traveling, cooking, and collecting “too many books”.
GARRETT OLIVER
Garrett Oliver is the brewmaster of The Brooklyn Brewery, the author of The Brewmaster’s Table, and the Editor-in-Chief of The Oxford Companion to Beer. He has been brewing craft beer since 1989 and is a veteran of over 1000 beer dinners and tastings in 16 countries. An original board member of Slow Food USA, he later went on to become a Councilor of Slow Food International. In 2014 Garrett was the recipient of the James Beard Award for “Beer/Wine/Spirit Professional”. In 2017, Garrett joined the board of MOFAD. In 2020 he founded the Michael James Jackson Foundation for Brewing and Distilling (MJF), a 501(c)(3) grant-making non-profit organization that funds scholarships for technical education in the brewing and distilling fields for people of color.
Photo by Jason Myers
FAWN WEAVER
Fawn Weaver has been a serial entrepreneur for nearly 25 years. As the CEO and founder of Grant Sidney, Inc. (GSI), a privately held investment company, Weaver has often been active in her investments, serving in leadership capacities behind the scenes. Weaver is a popular TED speaker, as well as a USA Today and New York Times bestselling author.
Weaver serves as the CEO of Uncle Nearest Premium Whiskey, a company she founded in 2016, which sits under the Grant Sidney umbrella. Uncle Nearest Premium Whiskey is the fastest-growing independent American whiskey brand in U.S. history and was the most award-winning American whiskey (including bourbon) of 2019 and 2020, earning World’s Best by Whisky Magazine two years in a row, as well as the industry coveted Double Gold by San Francisco World Spirits Competition. She is also a member of the Young Presidents Organization (YPO), a global leadership community of some of the most successful CEOs in the world.
Weaver is the founder of the Nearest Green Foundation, a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization that offers full scholarships to every descendant of Nearest Green, the world’s first known African-American master distiller. Through their Operation Brother’s Keeper initiative, the Foundation supplied more than 300,000 N-95 and cloth masks to workers on the frontline and people in disadvantaged communities during the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2020, in response to the BLM movement, the Foundation formed an alliance with Jack Daniel Distillery to create the Nearest and Jack Advancement Initiative, to elevate people of color within the American whiskey industry and to greatly increase diversity in the spirits industry overall. She formerly served on the executive boards of MEND Poverty and Slavery No More.
THE GREENE SPACE
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