Bolstered by legacy, Black distillers push for diversity in industry: 'You're actually not alone'

Yakntoro Udoumoh spent years trying to break into the alcohol distilling industry.

He first tried to find work at a local rum distillery, but there were no spots open. Then, without the capital to launch a business on his own, he started bartending while waiting for an opportunity.

After five years of bartending, Udoumoh is finally stepping into the distilling business, thanks to a program made to give people of color a chance in what experts told Paste BN is an industry dominated by white men.

Udoumoh, 27, is one of two inaugural interns in the STEPUP program, organized by the American Craft Spirits Association, a national nonprofit trade group with over 2,000 members.

Udoumoh is part of a growing movement of Black distillers honoring the legacies of their ancestors and calling attention to systemic racism in distilling, or the process of making spirits such as gin, whiskey, rum, vodka and brandy, often from grains or fruits. Among their calls to action is for industry leaders to recognize the historic contributions of Black distillers, many of them told Paste BN.

After starting his internship in January at Eight Oaks Farm Distillery in New Tripoli, Pennsylvania, Udoumoh said he feels he's walking in the footsteps of Black distillers before him who have been written out of the industry's history.

"It's easy to feel alone when you're a person of color in this industry," Udoumoh said. "...But there's a sense of belonging that you feel when you learn this history, and there's a comfort in knowing that there's people who've done this before you, that you're actually not alone."

Margie A.S. Lehrman, CEO of American Craft Spirits Association, said it’s hard to say exactly how many distillery owners are Black. But she said she can only think of a handful, despite what she called a “deep history of distilling” in Black communities.

“We're only beginning to understand and really talk just what role that community did play within the distilling industry,” Lerhman said.

The legacy of Uncle Nearest

On a farm among the rolling hills of Lynchburg, Tennessee whiskey was born. But the history of its origins remained hidden for decades, kept alive through stories passed between family members.

In the 1800s, a young Jack Daniel was introduced to Nearest Green, “the undisputed godfather of Tennessee whiskey,” who perfected the famed Lincoln County Process of filtering whiskey through charcoal, said Green’s great-great-granddaughter Victoria Eady Butler.

Green, a formerly enslaved man, took Daniel under his wing and taught him all he knew about distilling whiskey. Their friendship became the foundation of the classic whiskey brand, Jack Daniel's.

“It's never been a secret that Blacks have been very instrumental in distilling in Kentucky and Tennessee,” Butler said. “But that doesn't mean we've gotten that recognition.”

When historian Fawn Weaver uncovered the story of Nearest Green, she wanted to make sure the distilling world knew his name, Butler said. So she founded the whiskey brand Uncle Nearest with the help of Green’s descendants.

Butler began blending whiskey, just as her great great grandfather once did. Soon, she earned the title of master blender at Uncle Nearest, becoming the first Black woman to be a master blender in the country, according to the company.

Weaver's research also pushed Jack Daniel's to further recognize Green's influence as it "deepened our understanding of this story and...elevated our appreciation of its importance," Jack Daniel's said in a statement to Paste BN.

Jack Daniel's said it first told the story of Nearest Green "on a large scale" in a book published in 1967. But recent years have seen more full-scale efforts to recognize his legacy.

Since 2016, Jack Daniel's worked with the New York Times on a story about Green, honored him as the distillery's first master distiller, installed an exhibit about him at its visitor center, and renamed its oldest barrel house after him. In 2020, the company partnered with Uncle Nearest to launch the Nearest & Jack Advancement Initiative to offer apprenticeships and mentoring for Black Americans in the whiskey industry and create a school of distilling in Green's honor.

“These stories aren't unique,” said Ramin Ganeshram, food historian and executive director of Connecticut's Westport Museum of History and Culture. “It's just that few of them managed to survive this systemic erasure. But the truth of U.S. history, including the history of distilling, is that it rests on the shoulders of Black people in America.”

Now, when Butler opens the door to the master blender house of Uncle Nearest's distillery, she said she can feel that her great-great-grandfather is proud of her for carrying on his legacy.

“I feel like I'm at home, and I feel that his spirit is here with us,” she said.

The history of distilling

In Africa and other regions from Asia to the Middle East, people have distilled alcohol for thousands of years, Ganeshram said.

Enslaved Africans brought this knowledge with them to the Americas, where it mixed with knowledge Europeans learned through trade routes from the East thousands of years before, she said.

“Distilling is part and parcel of the American experience,” she said. “But it's always been via the knowledge of people of color and on the backs of people of color.”

Distilling is also directly tied to agriculture, and for much of U.S. history, agriculture was tied to slavery, Ganeshram said.

As a result, Ganeshram said much of the distilling industry was built on the shoulders of enslaved Black people. For example, George Washington’s famous distillery in Mount Vernon, once the largest in the country, was run by enslaved distillers, Ganeshram said.

Ganeshram is one of many historians searching property and tax records and legal documents to uncover the stories of Black people who contributed to the distilling industry.

“Because enslaved people don't really appear in the historical record except as property, we have been robbed of the knowledge of their contributions,” she said. “...The clues that we get are very, very small shreds if we're very lucky. It's painstaking.”

Carrying on the legacy

Distillers of color are making connections between their work and that of Black distillers before them, drawing inspiration from their methods.

For Jackie Summers, founder of the brand Sorel, that inspiration comes from the famous, centuries-old Red Drink. The history of the drink begins in West Africa, where hibiscus was used to create the ceremonial and medicinal beverage.

The transatlantic slave trade from the mid-sixteenth century until the 1800s brought the flower and knowledge of the Red Drink to the Americas, Summers said. In the Caribbean, Summers said each island began to make its own version of the drink, also called Sorel, based on the spices available. In Jamaica, it was imbued with cardamom, ginger and allspice. In Trinidad and Tobago, it had cinnamon, nutmeg and clove.

“I want people to be reminded of home and of this terrific story of persistence, resilience and joy in the bottle,” said Summers, who started his business in 2012. “Sorel is a symbol of a culture people tried to erase. They took away people's names. They took away their religion, culture and traditions. They separated families. Yet somehow this beverage survived.”

“...We've always been here, and it's only now that we're starting to get the opportunity to maximize and monetize our skills legally,” Summers said.

Still, when Summers walked into bars with his product, he said people would often assume he was a delivery driver rather than the founder of the company.

“People ask me how I stay hungry to do this work, despite the setbacks,” he said. “And my response is always the same. I'm eating for the ancestors who starved.”

Three years after Summers launched his brand, Chris Montana opened Du Nord Craft Spirits in Minneapolis.

A key obstacle Montana ran into was cost, he said. He was forced to find workarounds and use more time-consuming methods, he added.

“We couldn't afford the equipment. We couldn't get any bank loans. We had no investors,” he said. “We didn't really look like the rest of the industry, and people weren't that interested in giving us money.”

At first, he didn’t think anything of it. But when he started to see other people less qualified than him starting distilleries with ease, he “started to realize that there might be a little bias baked into the system.”

Along with a slowly growing group of Black distillers, Black consumers of spirits are also calling for industry changes, including Jamar Mack, founder of Kentucky's Original Black Bourbon Enthusiasts, and Samara B. Davis, founder of the Black Bourbon Society. They told Paste BN they wanted to counter the traditional image of a bourbon drinker as solely a wealthy, white man.

"I was looking for an experience where I could see myself and build my own community," Davis said, adding that Black consumers want to see brands emphasize diversity and recognize their true histories.

“We want just a simple acknowledgement that we participated, that we have always been part of the spirits industry,” she said.

Experts say other steps forward include funding research efforts into the full history of the distilling history, as well as improving access to capital, training programs, mentorship and networking opportunities.

"We haven't even begun the reckoning," Summers said. "We're just getting started with acknowledging this history. We have a long way to go."

Contact News Now Reporter Christine Fernando at cfernando@usatoday.com or follow her on Twitter at @christinetfern.