The money will go toward a relaunch of Sorel, a sweet, spiced hibiscus liqueur with Caribbean roots developed by the distillery’s founder, Jackie Summers.Ī second $2 million investment is for the Equiano Rum Company, a British rum brand named for Olaudah Equiano, a prominent figure in the abolition movement who was born in Africa and enslaved in the Caribbean, and bought his way to freedom in 1766. One is a $2 million stake in Jack from Brooklyn, which in 2012 became the first known Black-owned distillery to open in the United States since Prohibition, but ran out of money and closed. The fund already has two investments in the pipeline. Uncle Nearest, which is privately owned, will also invest. ![]() Weaver said she expected to close the Uncle Nearest Venture Fund to investors by the end of June, with at least 50 percent of the capital coming from Black investors. They’re building to create generational wealth.” “What that means to me is, they are not building to flip, they’re not building to sell. “I am looking for the brands that have the ability to be the next Uncle Nearest,” she said during a recent video conference call with her staff. The announcement was timed to mark the 100th anniversary of the Tulsa Race Massacre, in which a prosperous Black neighborhood in Tulsa, Okla., was destroyed and hundreds of residents were killed by a white mob. Weaver, the company’s founder and chief executive, went a step further toward diversifying an industry long dominated by white men, as the company announced the creation of a $50 million investment fund aimed at helping minority-owned spirits businesses grow. It’s a testament not just to the quality, but also to the power of an inclusive brand with a compelling story. Uncle Nearest is now the nation’s fastest-growing whiskey brand, according to the drinks-market analysis firm IWSR. ![]() Four years later, her bourbon has sold nearly 1.5 million bottles, according to a recent report in The Spirits Business. In 2017 Fawn Weaver began bottling Uncle Nearest Premium Whiskey as a passion project to honor Nearest Green, the formerly enslaved distiller who taught Jack Daniel how to make whiskey.
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