Uncle Nearest creates $50M fund for minority brands

Officials with Shelbyville-based Uncle Nearest Premium Whiskey have announced the formation of the $50 million Uncle Nearest Venture Fund.

According to a release, the fund was created to invest in rapidly growing, minority-founded and -owned spirit brands and comes on the 100th anniversary of the destruction of the so-called Black Wall Street in Tulsa. The fund has chosen its first two investments of $2 million apiece: London-based Equiano, the world's first Afro-Caribbean rum founded by Ian Burrell and Aaisha Dadral; and Jack From Brooklyn Inc., the first-known Black-owned distillery in America post-Prohibition and the maker of Sorel Liqueur.