'There were so many people distilling whiskey, and charcoal mellowing was common to this area,' Eddy says. Everyone in these hills was making it the same way, says company historian Eddy. This method of mellowing probably wasn't some kind of Green family recipe. ' a long time, but it'd go through that charcoal.'

'Run the whiskey through the top and it comes out the bottom,' he recalls. He's looking through some old photos from the 1940s, when they made whiskey the very same way they do today, running it through charcoal made on site. 'My mother said something to me about it when I was real small, but I didn't think nothing about it back then, you know?' says Claude Eady, a 91-year-old relative of Nearis Green.Д®ady himself worked an entire career at the distillery. 'I did not know that part,' Bevill says, 'but I'm not surprised.'Д®ven Green's descendants were kind of in the dark. She said she hadn't heard of Green until now. They include superfans like Debra Bevill of Lubbock, Texas, who was visiting on vacation earlier this summer and sported Jack Daniel's tattoos on her arms. That photo is not a new discovery: It hangs in a place of prominence in Daniel's old office, which is part of the official distillery tour.Д®ach year, 300,000 people find their way off the beaten path to visit the distillery and learn about its history. The photograph he refers to is one that shows Jack Daniel, with a gray goatee, around 1895, surrounded by his crew, including two African-American men believed to be the sons of Nearis Green. Because I think the best part of this story is the photograph.' 'But we do know that Jack had a great deal of respect for that family. 'We don't know exactly what he taught Jack,' Eddy says. One book says Green was pastor Call's master distiller.Д¬ompany historian Nelson Eddy (left) stands in front of a statue of Jack Daniel with Claude Eady, a descendant of Nearis Green. 'There's a lot of mystery there,' says Jack Daniel's company historian Nelson Eddy. It's not clear exactly what parts of the process Daniel picked up from Green. That's where he learned his trade - perhaps under the tutelage of Green, an African-American who, at the time, was enslaved by Call. Until now, the story usually told about the firm's founding was this: Jack Daniel left home as a young teen, went to work for Dan Call - ironically, a pastor - and ended up helping with Call's whiskey. The story of Nearis Green first got national attention earlier this summer, when The New York Times ran an article about his role in Jack Daniel's history based on a pitch from the company. And as part of its 150th anniversary, the company is highlighting a lesser-known part of its story: how a slave played a key role in its founding. To this day, all of the whiskey is made in the hills of little Lynchburg, Tenn. Jack Daniel's is a historic brand built on stories and legend. He and a second African-American man (top left) are believed to be sons of Nearis Green, who may have helped teach Daniel his trade. The photo, taken in the 1890s, shows Jack Daniel (wearing a black-banded white hat and a gray goatee), seated next to an African-American man. Tour guide Ron Craig points to a photo in Jack Daniel's old office at the whiskey maker's distillery in Lynchburg, Tenn.

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