Fawn Weaver
Founder, Uncle Nearest Premium Whiskey. On 2 shows, 5 appearances. The Shows tab opens the full record on each.
founderexecutiveauthorinvestor@FawnWeaver ↗LinkedIn ↗fawnweaver.com ↗Wikipedia ↗
Weaver founded Uncle Nearest Premium Whiskey in 2017 to honor Nathan Nearest Green, the formerly enslaved master distiller who taught Jack Daniel. She is also a bestselling author whose books include Happy Wives Club and Love & Whiskey.
2shows
5appearances
67statements
18resolved
12supported
2contradicted
67%fully supported
15said about them ↓ Everything Fawn Weaver said on any show that made the record, most notable first. Each card names its show and opens the statement there.
Weaver: Viral social media narratives falsely claimed Jack Daniel stole his recipe
“The internet decided almost instantaneously, with the headline in the photo, that Jack Daniel was a slave owner, he hid the recipe, he stole the recipe, he hid the slave. That was not a part of the story. It was not even insinuated, but that is the story that …”
Suppliers ignored Weaver's female team but answered her husband immediately
“Keith called every single person on our collective list, and he got through either immediately when calling, or they called him back by the end of the day. He didn't have to wait 24 hours to get in touch with any of those people that we had been trying to reac…”
Before Uncle Nearest, 100% of American whiskey brands represented white males
“White males represent 30% of this country and a hundred percent Of the whiskeys up until uncle nearest, 100%.”
Suppliers immediately called Weaver's husband after ignoring her all-female team
“Keith called every single person on our collective list, and he got through either immediately when calling, or they called him back by the end of the day. He didn't have to wait 24 hours to get in touch with any of those people that we had been trying to reac…”
Weaver: Jack Daniel and Nearest Green shared mutual love and respect
“I told her that I thought the Social media had the story wrong. I did not believe that her ancestor was what they were saying he was. I believe that the story between Jack and Nearest was a story of love, honor, and respect.”
Weaver: The spirits industry remains difficult for women and minority founders
“And now, all of these generations later, that's not changed. And so, it is a really difficult business to get into, because there's a lack of familiarity of both women in, in power and business in the industry, and people of color.”
Weaver: Uncle Nearest entered global spirits awards before selling a single bottle
“I told Kate, our chief business officer, I said submit us into every award competition around the world. We began doing that before we ever put a bottle in the marketplace.”
Weaver: Founders should never be humble when promoting their own brand
“Being humble about your brand is not the way to go. You can be humble in your life, but don't be humble about in your brand. You have to brag because that's what consumers care about. That is what the press cares about.”
Weaver: A standalone single brand cannot survive in the spirits industry
“One of the things I discovered coming into it is, is, is a single brand dies in this industry.”
Weaver: Entrepreneurs who sell their companies and retire invariably regret it
“For those who just decide, okay, I'm going to sell and just sit back, yeah, that's an option. And then, yes, they are just kind of Sitting pretty, but then here's the thing, and you know plenty that have done this, they all regret it afterwards, because now th…”
Weaver: Uncle Nearest aims for generational parity with legacy global spirits
“The moment I came into this industry, the purpose wasn't To build a whiskey company, it was Cement the Legacy of Nearest Green. And once I got in, I understood that wasn't possible unless this brand began to go toe to toe, and it doesn't have to be this genera…”
Weaver secured Uncle Nearest trademarks before informing Jack Daniel's
“I had already, I already had the trademarks. So by the time I shared with them what I would be doing, I made sure I had the trademarks.”
Uncle Nearest spent $1M on ads while completely sold out nationwide
“I spent a million dollars in commercial ads when we were out of stock everywhere in the country.”
Major liquor conglomerates squeezed craft distillers' shelf space in 2020
“No independent saw big years last year because the big guys, once the pandemic happened, they've got to keep those shares up. Right. And so they took over the shelf space. There was very little shelf space that remained for craft distillers.”
'Jack Daniel's Legacy' mentions Nearest Green's family more than Jack's own
“Jack Daniels Legacy. It was a biography by a local journalist out of Tuscaloosa, Alabama, who goes to Lynchburg, Tennessee, to write the authoritative biography on the most famous whiskey maker in the world. And very early on into the book, It introduces this …”
Weaver: Jack Daniel did not steal Nearest Green's whiskey recipe
“So all around the internet at that time was that they very quickly determined that Jack was the slave owner, that he stole the recipe, hid nearest, and all these other things. Well, I'm reading this biography and going, not a chance, because I believed that it…”
White men founded 100% of commercial whiskey brands before Uncle Nearest
“White males represent 30% of this country and a hundred percent of the whiskeys up until Uncle Nearest.
100%.”
Weaver spent $1 million on commercial ads while completely out of stock
“Last September. We were out of stock in the entire country, meaning we were selling much faster than we could bottle. I spent a million dollars in commercial ads when we were out of stock everywhere in the country.”
Weaver: Founder confidence should not rely on early product success
“If the confidence is coming from a product, that's a flawed strategy, because you might have a product that fails, and you might start another product, that product may fail, it may not be until you're on your fourth product, but you have to believe in yoursel…”
Weaver: Nearest Green Distillery is the seventh most visited distillery globally
“I've talked about how our distillery, now the seventh most visited distillery in the world.”
Weaver: Black founders were legally obscured from major American brand histories
“There's Zero chance that we weren't at the beginning of a lot of these companies, but we weren't allowed to patent, we weren't allowed to trademark, and so we have no way of knowing what our role was”
Weaver: Alcohol distributors are financially beholden to major spirits conglomerates
“And so the challenge with that second tier, their bills are paid for and their bonuses are paid for by big guys.”
Weaver: Traditional spirits expansion requires 25 years of contiguous state growth
“So in our industry, the norm is you start off in one state, in a single state. And then within about seven years, if you're able to build traction in that single state, then you'll try to get into maybe four states that connect to that one state. So everything…”
Weaver: Pitching a business's weaknesses and threats is essential for investors
“When you're doing your business plan, if you're only looking at all of the strengths, you're missing a huge part. That the weaknesses and the threats are important, because if you can't answer how you're going to maneuver around those, how you're going to win,…”
The other half of the tape: Fawn Weaver's own voice is left out of every number here. Other people bring the name up 15 times in 15 episodes across the shows. every mention, with the transcript →
Who brings them up most Guy Raz 15
Every mention by year
tap a year for its mentions
How I Built This 15
2024 15 mentions in 15 episodes 1 per episode
- Dhar Mann Studios: Dhar Mann
- YouTube Creator and Cookbook Author: Rosanna Pansino
- CrunchLabs: Mark Rober
- AI is smarter than you think with Shane Legg of Google DeepMind
- Mythical: Rhett and Link
- Less competition, more creation with Renée Mauborgne
- Whole30: Melissa Urban
- “Beaming” people anywhere in the world with David Nussbaum of Proto
- 7 more episodes that year, every mention in 2024 →
One line per show, most statements first. The link opens Fawn's full record on that show: the calibration, argument clarity, speaking style and every statement made there.
| Show | Role there | Eps | Statements | Record | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| HOW I BUILT THISLEDGER | Founder, Uncle Nearest Premium Whiskey | 4 | 49 | 57% 8/14 | full record on How I Built This → |
 MASTERS OF SCALELEDGER | Founder, Uncle Nearest Premium Whiskey | 1 | 18 | 100% 4/4 | full record on Masters of Scale → |