By Richard Thomas
Rating: D
No whiskey book has received as much hoopla and so far in advance of its publication as Fawn Weaver’s Love and Whiskey. As Weaver herself tells it, she first learned the story of Nathan “Nearest” Green by reading an article while traveling, the period when the open secret that Jack Daniel’s mentor in actually making whiskey was an enslaved man first broke into the general public consciousness. For several years after that, Weaver would regularly appear in further media articles, jointly promoting her work on her future book while also promoting the start and, later, success of her whiskey company named for Nathan Green, Uncle Nearest.
My copy of Love and Whiskey arrived in Spring 2025, as I was putting the finishing touches on my own forthcoming book about Jack Daniel’s. I decided for necessity’s sake to put Love and Whiskey aside. It came to late to be properly used as a resource, but at the same time I did not want it entering into my thoughts when it came time to review my blueline and do last minute revisions later on this year. So, it was not until winter had almost arrived that I finally dug into the book.
I could not have been more disappointed.
Weaver’s book is not a telling of the story of Nathan Green, even though it was said for years in the media that she was working on a book about Nathan Green. That simple fact is the first and largest cause for dismay. Mind you, I understand the difficulties of telling Nathan Green’s story in a major work of non-fiction, because there simply is not that much story to tell. Documentary evidence and even folklore on Green himself is not extensive, and even after placing Green in the larger context of his times and what is known about other enslaved distillery workers, the result would be a rather short book.
What could have built on that short book was taking that structure, one so often used in books to plump up their word counts, and telling the story of Green’s descendants as well. For example, Daniel’s heir and nephew Lem Motlow took one of Green’s sons with him when he was forced to relocated Jack Daniel’s to St. Louis by Tennessee’s enactment of Prohibition in 1909. Green’s descendants are part of the Jack Daniel’s much vaunted generational workforce, and are known to have worked for the company from Nathan Green’s day to the present, whenever it was in business. That story arc is a substantial one, and Weaver addresses it, but strictly as a subplot element in her real story, which is about herself.
Here I must explain that I take a dim view of gonzo journalism. Telling someone else’s story from the first-person perspective has always struck me as self-absorbed at best and narcissistic at worst. So, I was never going to give Weaver high marks for making herself the main character in the story of the Green legacy, but that is just one part of what is wrong with this book. The other sore point is that it was sold as being about the Green legacy for years prior to publication, but when it came out it turned out to be about Weaver’s journey of research and starting Uncle Nearest. Green descendants appear as tertiary characters in what is not theirs, but Weaver’s story.
This sort of thing would be pretty normal for books written by CEOs or politicians, but it just does not happen in the genre of drinks non-fiction. I felt very much like I had been sent a false bill of goods.
So, I review Love And Whiskey with scant room to spare before Christmas, and my opinion is this: don’t buy this book for the whiskey fan on your shopping list, and if you already have, return it. The only people who will enjoy it are fans not of whiskey, but of Weaver, and I’m quite sure they already have a copy.
Disclaimer: As part of the work for my own book, I asked Uncle Nearest for permission to photograph the Dan Call house in Lynchburg, Tennessee; Green was enslaved to Call, so the property was both where Daniel learned whiskey-making under Green and the whiskey business under Call. The Weavers later acquired the property. They furnished their own photographs, but declined to allow me onto the property.
