Uncle Nearest Founder Fawn Weaver Calls Out Tequila Industry for Use of Additives
Founder and CEO, Grant Sidney, Inc. and Uncle Nearest, Inc., Fawn Weaver speaking at the 2024 Forbes Power Women’s Summit at Jazz at Lincoln Center in New York, NY on September 11, 2024. (Photo: Efren Landaos/Sipa USA via AP Images)
Fawn Weaver, founder and CEO of the fastest-growing whiskey brand in the U.S., Uncle Nearest, has drawn mixed reactions online for a series of “Tequila Takedown” videos, in which she criticized the state of the agave spirits industry.
In a clip posted to Instagram last week, Weaver donned a cowboy hat and surrounded herself with a collection of best-selling tequila bottles: Clase Azul, Don Julio 1942, Jose Cuervo, Kendall Jenner’s 818 and more — all of which Weaver rightly called out for containing syrupy sweet additives.
Pointing to a wall of whiskeys stacked to the ceiling, Weaver continued:
“But do you know what is 100% additive free, naturally sugar free, naturally carb free, naturally fat free, naturally gluten free? Uncle Nearest, every single bottle. So you can get with this, or you can get with that.”
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For many, the gist of Weaver’s argument should hit the nail right on the head. As tequila muscles out whiskey and vodka to become one of the most valuable spirits categories in America, discussions surrounding “good” and “bad” agave have evolved into a critical look at a myriad of unsavory ingredients.
Additives as defined by Tequila Matchmaker can be classified into one of four categories; glycerin (for achieving a smooth mouthfeel), oak extract (for adding aromas and flavors of barrel aging), caramel coloring (to add a darker tint) and sugar based-syrup (for sweetening). So long as these substances make up less than 1% of the total liquid, brands are not required to disclose their presence on the label. However, as educators will often remind you, it only takes a single drop for these additives to achieve their desired effect.
Between 70% and 85% of tequilas are estimated to contain at least one of the four additive types. If you can think of a recognizable brand — particularly those that Weaver called out in her video — you have a good idea of what they taste like.
None of this should be viewed as controversial; if anything, Weaver was reiterating points that spirits enthusiasts agree wholeheartedly with. Things got trickier in a second video that Weaver has since taken down from Instagram. In it, the Uncle Nearest founder delved into the contentious issue of additive-free certification.
“So I went to the store, and spent 20 or 30 minutes in the aisle Googling one by one all the different Tequilas I love: 1942, Don Julio, we can go down a whole list, and I couldn’t find any website that would tell me straight up which ones had additives, and I couldn’t figure out why, and then I came across a letter – you can just Google it – it’s from the CRT, the governing body of Tequila, instructing Tequila makers and producers as of August 12th 2024 not to label if they’re additive-free.”
The letter that Weaver mentions is the linchpin in a long-unwinding battle between the CRT (Tequila Regulatory Council), Mexico’s regulating authority, and the Additive-Free Alliance, a third-party organization that — up until recently — spearheaded the largest database of confirmed additive-free tequilas.
Earlier this month, the Additive-Free Alliance announced that all brands would be removed from its list for fear of “retribution and legal action.” The context was clear as day. The CRT has been none too pleased with viral discussions of additives, repeatedly using its platform to denounce labeling efforts and refocus the narrative. The dispute reached a boiling point in March when the CRT raided a home owned by Additive-Free Alliance founders Grover and Scarlet Sanschagrin.
Rather than highlighting the success and erasure of the additive-free movement, Weaver used the opportunity to promote American-made spirits, namely Uncle Nearest.
“So I’ll tell you this, the one I chose was Patrón El Cielo – it’s delicious by the way – but do you know how much digging I had to go through to figure out whether or not that had additives? It shouldn’t be that hard. And we should be drinking our own spirit,” Weaver continued. “Uncle Nearest Tennessee whiskey, straight bourbon whiskey, you know what means? There’s nothing in this except for grains.”
Trade professionals including Agave Social Club founder Doug Price and bartender Lui Fernandes quickly chimed in, arguing that Weaver was casting too broad a stroke over the tequila industry. Lucas Assis, an agave spirits educator with nearly 200,000 followers on Instagram, added in response:
“@fawn.weaver has posted a over generalization and belittled a whole country’s spirits in order to promote her product? At least that’s how it came off. Although she did make some good points and I believe this is a direct product of the CRTs purposeful lack of transparency in the Tequila world. That take was a swing and a miss. Let’s Collaborate and build each other up instead putting others down in order to grow. There’s enough that Everyone can eat!”
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