Insight certainty 4/5 debate potential 2/5

Sourcing whiskey to scale an American brand is structurally harder than Scotch

Fawn Weaver · Uncle Nearest Premium Whiskey: Fawn Weaver (2021) · Mar 4, 2024 · at 42:35

Fawn Weaver, founder of Uncle Nearest Premium Whiskey, explains why sourcing premium aged whiskey to build an independent brand in the US is uniquely difficult.

0:00 / 0:26exact quote · 26.6s
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“In Scotland, the distilleries produce enough for themselves, but they also produce enough for a ton of others to be able to purchase from them. It's a part of their overall business model. That's not our business model in America. There's basically not enough to build a major brand, and this business is so expensive and so difficult to That if you can't build a large brand, you're basically just kind of waiting to die.”

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More from Fawn Weaver

Assertion Not checkable as stated
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…”
Fawn Weaver Mar 4, 2024 ▶ 54:12 Uncle Nearest Premium Whiskey: Fawn Weaver (2021)
Assertion Not checkable as stated
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%.”
Fawn Weaver Mar 4, 2024 ▶ 59:01 Uncle Nearest Premium Whiskey: Fawn Weaver (2021)
Assertion Not checkable as stated
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…”
Fawn Weaver Oct 4, 2021 ▶ 56:19 Uncle Nearest Premium Whiskey: Fawn Weaver
Disclosure
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.”
Fawn Weaver Mar 4, 2024 ▶ 46:07 Uncle Nearest Premium Whiskey: Fawn Weaver (2021)
Disclosure
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.”
Fawn Weaver Mar 4, 2024 ▶ 1:02:44 Uncle Nearest Premium Whiskey: Fawn Weaver (2021)
Assertion Not checkable as stated
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.”
Fawn Weaver Mar 4, 2024 ▶ 1:04:10 Uncle Nearest Premium Whiskey: Fawn Weaver (2021)
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