Nelson's Green Briar with Founder Charlie Nelson
If you're looking for the historic legacy of Tennessee Whiskey, you do not want to miss our livestream tonight! Charlie Nelson, great-great-great grandson of Nelson's Green Briar Distillery founder Charles Nelson, is joining us to chat with Pedro about how he's relaunching the family's brand for the first time since 1909. -- Follow us: spiritguidesocietypodcast.com facebook.com/spiritguidesoc twitter.com/spiritguidesoc instagram.com/spiritguidesoc youtube.com/c/SpiritGuideSociety/?sub_confirmation=1 -- About Nelson's Green Briar: (greenbrierdistillery.com) The Nelson's Green Brier Heritage Charles Nelson was born July 4, 1835 in Hagenow, a small town in the Mecklenburg-Schwerin state of northern Germany. He was the eldest of six children whose father, John Philip Nelson, owned a soap and candle factory. When Charles was 15, his father decided he wanted to move his family to America for a better life. He sold his soap and candle factory, converted all of the family’s earthly possessions to gold and had special clothing made to hold all of that gold on his person during the journey. In late October of 1850, he gathered his family and boarded the Helena Sloman to set sail for America. As fate would have it, on November 19 of that year, intense storms and gale force winds sent many of the nearly 180 passengers overboard. John Philip Nelson was one of those unfortunate souls and weighed down by the family fortune, he sank directly to the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean. Luckily, the rest of the family arrived safely in New York, but with only the clothes on their backs, and 15 year-old Charles found himself man of the house. The Move to Nashville Penniless yet determined, Charles and his brother began doing the only thing they knew how to do: making soap and candles. After saving some money, the Nelson family moved west, settling in Cincinnati, Ohio. It was there that Charles, merely 17 years of age, entered the butcher business and acquainted himself with a number of fellow craftsmen who educated him in the art of producing and selling distilled spirits, particularly whiskey. Several years later, just before the start of the Civil War, Charles set out for Nashville seeking a fresh start and another American dream took tenuous root. He opened a grocery store which flourished from sales of his three best-selling products: coffee, meat and whiskey. The quality of both his products and service quickly built Charles a reputation that went unmatched in Nashville’s merchant circles. His honesty and fair dealings brought about great prosperity for his business as well as an elevated social status in the community. Very quickly however, Charles realized that the demand for his whiskey far exceeded his supply, revealing to him the opportunity to focus solely on whiskey. So he sold the grocery business. Legend has it the blend of coffee was then brought to the Maxwell House Hotel in downtown Nashville, where patrons would later proclaim it as “good to the last drop”. His butcher stayed in business and the store soon grew into a successful Nashville-based grocery chain that is still in business today. Beginnings Of A Distillery Charles bought the distillery that was making his whiskey in Greenbrier, TN, and a patent for improved distillation. He expanded the production capacity in order to keep up with demand. With this expansion, Nelson was not only creating more jobs, he was making a name for Tennessee Whiskey. By 1885, there were hundreds of whiskey distilleries in Tennessee, but only a handful were producing significant volume. That year, Charles Nelson sold nearly 380,000 gallons, that's around 2 million bottles, of Nelson’s Green Brier Tennessee Whiskey. In comparison other well-known brands had a maximum production capacity of just 23,000 gallons at that time. Green Brier Tennessee Whiskey was in such demand that it was being sold in markets ranging from Jacksonville, FL to San Francisco, CA to Paris, Franc
