Rawnica Dillingham, director of specialty markets and gross sales for Uncle Nearest in Ohio, Michigan, and Minnesota, mentioned the Lincoln County Course of with ELEVATE attendees.
Photographs by Justin D. Harrison
She defined that Uncle Nearest honors the legacy of Nearest Inexperienced, who was born into slavery round 1820 and have become the primary grasp distiller for Jack Daniel. In 2016 writer and researcher Fawn Weaver learn an article in The New York in Occasions that prompt an enslaved man taught Jack Daniels the whiskey-making craft. She determined to dig deeper into Daniel’s story; in doing so, Weaver uncovered Inexperienced’s story and based Uncle Nearest in 2017.
Since then, the model has garnered greater than 500 awards and accolades, and its 432-acre distillery in Shelbyville, TN produces a number of the most-awarded American whiskey and bourbon.
Each whiskey varieties should meet the identical fundamental necessities: it should be aged in a brand new, charred American oak barrel; it should enter the barrel at a most of 62.5% ABV, be distilled to a most of 80% AVD, and bottled at a minimal of 40% ABV; and the mash should include at the very least 51% corn. Tennessee whiskey, nonetheless, undergoes an additional step.
After it’s distilled—however earlier than it’s barreled—it’s despatched by way of vats which are stuffed with charcoal from sugar maple bushes. This methodology was previously often called charcoal leaching. It earned its present moniker when Inexperienced taught Daniel learn how to make whiskey in Lincoln County. At the moment, it’s what defines Tennessee whiskey and makes it in contrast to another spirit on this planet.
“It doesn’t add something to it,” Dillingham mentioned. “It reduces. The method is definitely eradicating, filtering, and cleaning.” She added that the Lincoln County Course of merely eliminates impurities and smoothes out flavors—making it “as easy as Tennessee whiskey.”
