US-based whisky distillery Uncle Nearest has formed a $50m corporate venture capital initiative dubbed Uncle Nearest Venture Fund.
The fund will target liqueur companies run by minority entrepreneurs including black, indigenous and female founders. It has already provided $2m each for UK-based rum vendor Equiano and Jack From Brooklyn, the US-headquartered producer of a hibiscus-based alcoholic drink.
Founded in 2016, Uncle Nearest owns the Uncle Nearest Premium Whiskey brand, which was named after an enslaved African American distiller, Nathaniel “Nearest” Green, who taught Jack Daniel, the founder of spirits producer Jack Daniel’s Distillery, to make whisky.
The establishment of Uncle Nearest Venture Fund ties into the 100th anniversary of the destruction of Black Wall Street, a region in the city of Tulsa that was home to many black-owned businesses which were burned down in the 1921 Tulsa race massacre.
Fawn Weaver, founder and chief executive of Uncle Nearest, who founded Uncle Nearest Venture Fund, said: “On June 1, 1921, an entire community of wealthy and successful African Americans was wiped out in a matter of hours. We are talking about 35 square blocks known as Black Wall Street.
“We cannot go back and undo the past, but I do believe we have full power over our future, and that recreating a Black Wall Street of sorts within the spirits industry is a great place to start.”
