Uncle Nearest needs a buyer ASAP

The biggest question in the world of brown liquor right now is “What will become of Brown-Forman Corporation?” After years of tough sledding for Jack Daniel’s parent company, we learned in late March that French spirits giant Pernod Ricard was entertaining what both firms described as “merger of equals.” France’s antitrust regulator signaled that it would be watching the stock deal very closely for sig—bah gawd, is that The Sazerac Company’s music?! It is indeed: seemingly outta nowhere, The Wall Street Journal reported last week that the closely held Brand Collector of New Orleans was circling its rival, B-F, with a cash offer consolidation apparently very much on the brain. Will Louisville’s stately and stodgy mega-distiller consummate a transatlantic liquor marriage with PR, or get swept into the outstretched arms of the enigmatic Big Daddy BuzzBallz, which WSJ just today reported offered $15 billion? Perhaps neither outcome will manifest? We have only to wait and see.

The boardroom tête-à-têtes and media tattle vis-à-vis B-F have temporarily overshadowed a much smaller, but no less intriguing mystery in the whiskey industry. Namely: “What will become of Uncle Nearest?” Recall, midway through last month, cofounder Fawn Weaver tried to enter the troubled Tennessee distiller—a former media darling in its own right that Forbes valued at $1.1 billion as recently as 2024—into Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings in an apparent scheme to slow down its court-appointed receiver’s methodical march towards the sale of some or all of its assets. The bankruptcy judge quickly ruled she didn’t have the authority to do this, in part because the receivership order she signed last August gives the receiver sole discretion on that one. Weaver has appealed; she faces potential fines from the receivership court, and could be in for serious, even criminal consequences in bankruptcy court.

While the receivership judge, Charles Atchley, deliberates Weaver’s fate, she has noticeably ceased posting to her Instagram grid about the case, and has embarked on some sort of cigar-and-whiskey whistle-stop tour with Uncle Nearest’s master blender. Meanwhile, in Tennessee, receiver Phillip Young filed a quarterly report last Friday on his progress, and by the sound of things, Uncle Nearest—”substantially all of” it—could be on the auction block by the end of the month.

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