A slave helped create the famous whiskey Jack Daniel's

                  

São Paulo - The famous whiskey Jack Daniel's, created in 1875 by Jack Daniel Distillery in Tennessee (USA), had the essential help of a black slave.

This is the new official story that the brand began to tell on its origin.

The story so far was that Jack Daniel, a teenager, learned the distillation process and recipe instructions with a pastor and grocer Lynchburg named Dan Call.

Now, the brand revealed that the true adviser Daniel was one of Call of slaves, called Nearis Green.

This version of the story already existed for a long time, but was treated just like a legend.

According to the New York Times, the brand began to talk about the real legacy of Nearis Green in their social networks and the official tour of the distillery in Tennessee - that attracts over 250,000 visitors every year.

The new "storytelling" Jack Daniel's is a big change for one of the most popular whiskey in the world.

Previously, the brand has always explored the "white aura" of its foundation, focused on offspring Daniel and his parents: Welsh settlers, Scottish and Irish.


Photo shows Americans in Tennessee in the production of whiskey. In the center of the photo: Jack Daniel and, at his side, a probable son of former slave Nearis Green.

In the US, the black slaves from the southern states have always had an essential role in distilleries. Besides working force, they dominated the techniques of complicated parts of the process.

It is not uncommon famous distilled revenues have been improved or developed by black - and then improperly appropriated by white farmers.

Marketing strategy

The transformation of the myth in the official story by Jack Daniel's is nonetheless also a marketing strategy.

The brand, targeting the Millenials (and thus a new broad consumer market), can be sensitive to racial issues, which are at the center of debate in the United States and have attracted younger.

The New York Times newspaper, Peter Krass, author of "Blood and Whiskey: The Life and Times of Jack Daniel," said that in the 1980s, the brand tried to connect to yuppies.

Now, try to connect to Millenials, very attentive to social issues of "justice."

History

But the brand ensures that it is just a matter of putting your story to clean.

Also, the legacy of Green is still being taken with caution within the company.

It is not known how, in the coming years, this new "storytelling" will be released and used.

The version on the direct participation of Nearis Green is old.

In "Jack Daniel's Legacy," 1967, the author Ben A. Green (no relations with Nearis Green), quotes a speech Call pastor who had asked Green to teach everything he knew to little Daniel:

"Uncle Nearis is the best doer of whiskey I know", I would have said at the time.

In 1865, with the official end of slavery in the United States (ratification of the 13th amendment to the US Constitution), Nearis Green was released but continued to work alongside Call.

Daniel had begun work on his whiskey in 1866 (the year that appears on drink labels today) and employed two children of Green.

But the official opening of the distillery, and Call as a partner, only happened in 1875.