Fawn Weaver

CTL-E-6198 · Person · businessperson · 2016–present

VERIFIED evidence grade — master store (canonical CSV)

VERIFIED evidence grade — build store (JSON graph)

Combined Graph record U-02362 · provenance: canonical master store (CSV), record CTL-P-0611 + build store (JSON graph), record CTL-E-6198. Master record source: CTL seed 2026-10-16 — UNVERIFIED, verify before public citation.

Fawn Weaver is an American entrepreneur and author who founded Uncle Nearest Premium Whiskey, the Tennessee whiskey brand created to honor Nathan “Nearest” Green, the formerly enslaved distiller who taught Jack Daniel how to make whiskey and, after Emancipation, became that company's head distiller. Weaver encountered Green's story in a 2016 New York Times article and moved from Los Angeles to Tennessee, initially imagining a book or film; after interviewing Green's descendants, she instead put his name on a bottle. She raised a $2.5 million seed round, partnered with a Nashville whiskey maker, and was bottling the first blend within months. Inc. reported in 2020 that the three-year-old company already sold in all 50 states and eight countries and was spending $50 million to turn a 270-acre Shelbyville farm into a distillery, tasting room, gallery, restaurant, and concert space. Weaver became, per Inc., the first woman of color to run a major spirits company and the first person of color to found one, assembling an all-minority board and an all-female executive team. In 2019 the company named Victoria Eady Butler, Green's great-great-granddaughter, a master blender. Weaver is also a New York Times bestselling author, founder of the Nearest Green Foundation, and builder of the $50 million Uncle Nearest Venture Fund.

The record

• Also known as: Fawn E. Weaver
• Role(s): entrepreneur, author

Notes

Staged 2026-10-16 under CTL-GOV-006 (Scan Tail Wave 5 — 747 Program, Wave 12; fifth Scan Tail packet at the founder's 40-record size). Gate A (2026-10-16): Gate A CLEAR (script-screened vs live graph, 3,843 entities) and hand-checked 2026-10-16: no 'Fawn Weaver' and no 'Uncle Nearest' entity exists in entities.json under name or aliases, so no duplicate and no Uncle Nearest endpoint is available for an edge. Supply: 747 Supply Ledger Tier 4 scan-tail reserve banked by Scan Tail Wave 4 (747-to-4,000 program), staged in Scan Tail Wave 5 Batch E; STAGED ONLY — not merged. Scan rank #2270. SCOPE GATE: 747 Supply Ledger Tier 4 scan-tail reserve, corpus-gap-candidates rank #2270. Vital status: Living — active as founder/CEO and announced as 2024 Craft Brewers Conference keynote speaker (Brewers Association, published 2023-12-04). STATISTICS — Counted/sourced/dated: $2.5 million seed round (Inc., 2020); sales in 50 states and 8 countries at three years old (Inc., 2020); $50 million Shelbyville distillery build on a 270-acre farm (Inc., 2020); more than 150 brand awards at Inc.'s count in 2020; $50 million Uncle Nearest Venture Fund (Brewers Association, 2023). No conflicting figures were found between the two opened sources; the Brewers Association's 'most awarded American whiskey of 2019, 2020, and 2021' is a brand claim relayed by the Association and is recorded as such, not as an independent count. MEDIA: photo HELD (HELD — portrait photograph of Fawn Weaver by Eric Ryan Anderson accompanying the Inc. profile (2020); no license claimed or verified, status HELD pending CTL-PHOTO-001 record. — named candidate only; file-level rights verification per CTL-PHOTO-001 still required; no license claimed); chart FILLED (charts/chart-ctl-e-6198-fawn-weaver.svg); video HELD (no matching-entity CTL Short or verified-rights archival video staged); audio HELD (no rights-cleared matching-entity audio staged); map N/A (person record). MEDIA LAYER (staged 2026-10-16; full per-asset PHOTO-001 records + embed specs in the packet's staged JSON, Drive packet folder): map = N/A (Persons are not mapped per packet instruction.) | visual_assets = HELD: | chart = FILLED (CTL-created chart (black / deep red / gold) built only from this record's sourced statistics and timeline fact) | video = HELD (HELD — no matching-entity entry for this name or its aliases in the CTL Shorts Link Map (shorts-link-map-2026-) | audio = HELD (No CTL-held audio. Weaver was a guest on NPR's 'How I Built This' (per Brewers Association bio, opened 2026-10)

Sources

• Inc. Magazine — Sara Clemence, 'This Founder Is Helping Essential Workers and Black Business Owners — and Making Inspired Whiskey' (Feb 2021 issue; published online 2020-12-03) (accessed 2026-10-16) — Weaver's 2016 encounter with the Nearest Green story, the $2.5M seed round, 50-state/eight-country sales, the $50M Shelbyville build, her first-woman-of-color / first-person-of-color distinctions, and Victoria Eady Butler's 2019 master-blender appointment — https://www.inc.com/magazine/202102/sara-clemence/uncle-nearest-whiskey-fawn-weaver-best-in-business-2020.html (primary source · build store)
• Brewers Association — 'Fawn Weaver to Keynote 2024 Craft Brewers Conference' (published 2023-12-04) (accessed 2026-10-16) — Weaver as founder and CEO of Uncle Nearest Premium Whiskey, NYT bestselling author, founder/CEO of Grant Sidney Inc., the $50M Uncle Nearest Venture Fund, and her active public role in 2024 (vital status) — https://www.brewersassociation.org/association-news/fawn-weaver-to-keynote-2024-craft-brewers-conference/ (build store)
• http://fawnweaver.com/ (verification source · master store)

Evidence note (master store)

Serial entrepreneur and two-time New York Times bestselling author; founder of Uncle Nearest Premium Whiskey; CEO of Grant Sidney Inc. and, per her official site as checked 2026-10-17, leads Uncle Nearest Inc. as CEO/owner.

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Record CTL-E-6198 · Combined Graph record U-02362 · CultureTechLens Knowledge Graph · 3 sources.
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Researched and maintained by the CultureTechLens research program · CultureTechLens Combined Graph, Release 2026-11-04. Corrections are public: the corrections log.

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