A pastor who was credited with founding the whiskey brand Jack Daniel's actually took the recipe from his slave, it has been claimed.
It's long been held that Revd Dan Call, a Lutheran minister in Lynchburg, Tennessee, was the one who taught a young Jack Daniel how to make bourbon whiskey.
Jack Daniel's now claims that it was actually Revd Call's slave, Nearis Green, who taught Jack Daniel how to distil good quality whiskey in the 1800s.
The company now sells more than 10 million cases a year and has only ever had seven master distillers in charge of its recipes and production methods since it began.
Revd Call is said to have remarked at the time: "Uncle Nearis [his slave] is the best whiskey maker that I know of."
A year after slavery was abolished in the US in 1866 Jack Daniel founded his own distillery and employed two of Nearis Green's sons (one of them pictured above) to work there, something the company says proves the man's talent in the field.
Jack Daniel's is still considering whether to formally include the story of Nearis Green in its official visitor centres in Lynchburg.
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Article by Aaron James
Tola Mbakwe is a multimedia journalist for Premier.
