DELTA DIRT DISTILLERY of Helena, Arkansas

Written by GABE TOTH

DIRT DISTILLERY

The Williams family has deep roots in the Arkansas Delta, going back more than a century to some of the most ignominious chapters in American history. But now, the family is trying to use their new and well-acclaimed craft distillery, Delta Dirt, to help create a rising tide in their longtime community of Helena, Arkansas.

Returning Home

It’s the only black-owned farm distillery in the country, a fourth-generation farm that Harvey William’s great grandfather, Joe Williams, worked his whole life as a sharecropper. His grandfather, U.D. Williams was eventually able to buy it outright. Harvey and his wife, Donna, had grown up in the area, went away to college, raised a family, and moved back in 2017.

“So many people in the Delta leave for opportunity, go to college and get a job, and we did just that,” he said. “Lived in places all over the country, raised our family, and always had this longing to come back to the family farm, [or] at least the area.”

The farm was passed to his father, Harvey Sr., who changed the focus of the farm from row cropping (soy, corn, and wheat) during a difficult time in the 1980s, and Harvey’s brothers Kennard and Andre stayed to help work the land.

“A lot of farmers got out of farming. Some of them were able to expand by leasing additional land. Some, like my dad, were able to diversify,” he said. “That’s how he ended up in the whole vegetable farming operation and farming sweet potatoes.”

He said he and Donna didn’t know exactly what they wanted to do or what kind of business they wanted to get involved in when they moved back. His father and brothers would attend vegetable farming conferences around the country, and that particular year they came back excited about what they had learned about sweet potatoes.

They were sharing with Harvey about an experience meeting someone in North Carolina who had sweet potato vodka, and the pieces started to fit together.

“From that point, I got really excited about, man, we have been growing sweet potatoes since the ‘80s, and this is a new way of looking at and doing something with what we’re already growing,” Harvey said.

They started visiting distilleries large and small, doing research, connecting with the American Craft Spirits Association, and meeting people in various stages of their companies’ life cycles. They knew of the distiller in North Carolina who was doing it, but couldn’t find many others around the country or any sort of established procedures for processing and distilling sweet potatoes.

Their son Thomas, now the fourth generation of the Williams farm family, graduated college with a degree in kinesiology and came back to help get things off the ground. “My plan was to pursue something in the medical field,” he said. Instead, he moved to Helena and started applying some of that scientific background to unlocking the process of producing sweet potato vodka. Harvey and Donna’s other son, Donavan, also moved back to Helena in 2021 to help with the distillery, and is now working as operations manager with a growing role on the sales side.

Once they settled on a formula for the sweet potato vodka, they settled on an odd proof, 86, as an homage to the year that he and Donna graduated high school (1986), as well as another important number. The original farm was 86 acres.

Honoring History

His grandfather farmed cotton, as well as some corn that was diverted to nonfood products. When U.D. was finally able to buy the farm, in November 1949, it was a result of working outside the established system. He took his cotton to a different ginner, or cotton processor, instead of his landlord that year. “What that meant was that he was able to get what that cotton was worth,” Harvey said. “Year after year, you’d go and you’d never have enough, or he’d never give you enough for your cotton to pay off the land.” It was a system that nominally replaced slavery, and finally earning your way out “was not meant to happen. For him to be able to do that was a big deal.”

Doing so didn’t come without its risks. Well into the 20th century, black farmers largely remained under the thumb of the sharecropping system, which kept them perpetually in debt and unable to leave a farm. When black farmers near Elaine, about 30 miles from the Williams’ farm, began to organize to get what their cotton was actually worth in 1919, “The white farmers and businesspeople learned of that, and it turned into one of the most deadly black massacres in the history of this nation,” Harvey said. An unknown number of black sharecroppers, with estimates ranging well into the hundreds, were massacred and many others tortured, with US soldiers participating to support white residents and landowners.

To help get to the point where he could purchase the farm, U.D. grew corn to sell, use for feed, and presumably use as a base for the moonshine that Harvey learned was part of the family history. “It wasn’t easy to get out of sharecropping at that time, and my grandad didn’t take a straight path to do that, either,” he said. “He was able to buy the farm with the money from cotton that year, and moonshine.

“It wasn’t easy to get out of sharecropping at that time, and my grandad didn’t take a straight path to do that, either. He was able to buy the farm with the money from cotton that year, and moonshine.”

— HARVEY WILLIAMS

My dad told us that. When Donna and I were doing this project, he comes in one day with this jug, and says, ‘Your grandad did moonshine, and this is the only evidence that we have left of him doing that.’ It’s this jug with a hook around the neck of it, and it’s got a number inscribed in it, the number five. I’m sure that meant something to my grandad. We didn’t know that was even in our background.”

His father also has a variety of old documentation, such as the deed to the property, information on who it was purchased from and when.

“I had no idea how deep the roots were here in the family,” Harvey said. “This project has lended itself to fulfilling the whole story of the family background, and now everyone in the family is learning more about our history, our heritage, and how we ended up with the farm. I hope and believe that my grandad is proud, my ancestral community is proud of what we’re doing, with the farm and holding on to it, taking it to the next generation.”

What The Future Holds

The farm now grows some corn, sweet potatoes, and wheat, but is primarily growing yellow and zucchini squash — 80 acres of it in 2022. Supplying the distillery with sweet potatoes and wheat is a side project as far as the farm is concerned, but Harvey said he “would be ok if we converted that land to supporting the distillery.”

Alongside their flagship vodka, made from corn and sweet potatoes from the farm, W&W Produce, and distilled on a hybrid 20-plate pot/column still, they also have a gin made from corn and wheat. Thomas said the gin is distilled with juniper, coriander, orange peel, angelica, cassia, and orris root, and is a more juniper-forward gin with coriander on the back end and orange on the nose.

They’ve also produced a bourbon with sweet potatoes, sourcing rye and barley elsewhere, that they hope to release later in 2023 or early 2024. Harvey said they’re tasting it every couple of months and are excited about how it’s progressing.

“At this point, I don’t know of anyone making bourbon that has sweet potatoes in the mashbill,” he said. “It wasn’t my idea. That was Donna. After the vodka turned out to be such a delightful product, she said, ‘Why don’t you guys try a bourbon that has sweet potatoes in it?’ We checked the regulations and actually called TTB and confirmed that, yeah, as long as that mashbill is at least 51 percent corn.”

It took some time to dial in the supply-and-demand aspect of the operation — too much corn coming from the farm, too many sweet potatoes, not enough corn, not enough sweet potatoes.

“Things just don’t happen exactly the way you expect them to happen. It was trial and error, and are you even going to get a product that you’re going to like?” Harvey said. “There was a lot at risk there. It’s a huge leap in a lot of ways.”

Part of that risk is the money itself that went into the venture. Because the local financial institutions were unfamiliar with the industry and not interested in supporting the effort, Harvey, who left his previous career in 2022, and Donna, who is still working outside of the distillery, wound up going it alone and investing their savings into the distillery. Potentially adding to the risk is the area that they’re investing in. The Arkansas Delta isn’t a highly populated area, and it has a long history of social and economic difficulties.

“It’s just been a challenged community. In rural America in general, but in rural America in the Delta it’s been doubly challenging, whether it’s race relations, economic opportunity, jobs. There’s just a lot going on in terms of disparity,” Harvey said.

To help draw in customers, they’ve created a warm, open space in downtown Helena, restoring the storefront, which is listed on the historic register, and updating the interior with a large tasting room, expansive bar, as well as a skylight that was original to the building. There’s also a large glass window to see into the distillery operation, including the still, stainless tanks, and bottling line.

“There’s transparency to the operation, which allows people to see what’s behind the curtain,” Harvey said. “Because this is the Delta, not many people have seen a real-life distillery in operation before. They’re fascinated by the whole concept of it. Their exposure to alcohol has been strictly retail. You go to the store and you buy your spirit of choice. This is kind of the attraction that helps them to see that, man, this is made here at the distillery, and you guys are using your own grain and sweet potatoes.”

Delta Dirt is distributing in four states, focusing on select markets such as Memphis versus the whole state of Tennessee, and finished 2022 with more than 1,000 cases sold, a lot through the distillery before they moved into distribution in October. They’ve recently secured support from Pronghorn, an investment company focused on providing black-owned spirits businesses with capital and industry expertise. As a result, they’ve been able to transition to a more data-driven approach to marketing and have purchased a semi-automatic bottling line to be installed this summer.

Harvey said the increasing support for their venture started with customers, initially visitors to the area or former residents who were excited to see something happening there.

“People are coming from across the state and even surrounding states, which is pretty amazing,” he said. “The other thing that’s happening, too, is that people who used to live here in Helena that have moved on and live across the country, when they return, they have heard about us and say, ‘The next time we come home, we’re gonna stop by.’ We get quite a bit of that, too.”

They’re hoping to spark something, lifting spirits in a way “that allows people to have an imagination about what is possible,” Harvey said.

“The distillery itself, I think it means a lot to this community. I had no idea that it would mean so much to the community and spearheading life and revitalization in this downtown area, just giving people more hope that there’s a lot more possible in this town than we thought there was. That means a lot, it means that you’re doing something beyond just for yourself.”

Doing something that goes beyond oneself is a point that resonates with every member of the family. Harvey said the distillery means an opportunity to continue writing the Williams family history on the farm, “an opportunity to carry on to the next generation.”

— DONNA WILLIAMS

Thomas said it meant hope for revitalization in the community, “and bringing in some new life. I share in that same vision and passion for this community,” he said. “For the family, it means a legacy, it’s something that you’re building not only for yourself, but hopefully for generations to come. It means something beyond yourself.”

Donovan, Harvey and Donna’s second son, called them “just a proud family in the Delta, just trying to make a difference, an impact, and I think we see that every weekend with conversations we have with people who come through. We’re just doing what we can and hopefully inspiring other people with what we do, with what we have.”

Donna said the distillery represents hope for the community. “Hope for the past, present, and future,” she said. “Like our tagline, raising spirits in the Delta. To me, that’s about giving hope. Hope of what can be done. With hope, you can do a whole lot of things, you can see something beyond yourself and see bigger things.”