By Diane Tipping
When Harvey Williams Jr. started brewing distilling vodka from sweet potatoes in Phillips County, Arkansas, in 2017, he didn't know his grandfather's story. "We were setting up the distillery, and [my dad] came in and said, 'Hey, your granddad used to do moonshine, and this is one of his jugs.' Then he went on to tell the story about how we came by way of getting the farm."
It’s a story that stretches back over five generations, from the brutal era of slavery in the United States right up to today. Like many freed slaves, members of the Williams family transitioned after the Civil War to sharecropping, working on plantations in exchange for a share of the crops they harvested. Despite systemic racism and economic exploitation, the fertile soil of the Arkansas Delta provided an opportunity. The Williams family managed to purchase their land, aided by income from moonshine brewed distilled and sold by UD Williams.
Harvey knew the area's rich history of food production and saw how his family's agricultural roots could yield new opportunities. His Delta Dirt Distillery uses sweet potatoes, an iconic crop in Southern agriculture, to produce high-quality vodka and other spirits. His products honor the family's agricultural past while tapping into a growing market for craft spirits. The distillery has quickly gained recognition for its award-winning products.
The journey from sharecropping to entrepreneurship and ownership hasn't been easy. Harvey faces some of the same issues his forefathers did: racism, lack of access to capital, and little support for innovation in an area of the US that's faced steady economic decline. "My dad always said, 'Don't let go of the land,'" Harvey recalled, adding that his father took the rare step of having a lawyer draw up a will, protecting the land from the perils of heirs' property, which, along with other structural inequalities, has led to significant land loss among Black families in the South.
Starting the distillery presented its own challenges. "When we started, the banks told us, 'We're unfamiliar with that industry.' And that was that," said Harvey. This echoes the discrimination his father faced when seeking loans for farming. "My dad was a living witness to the discrimination that was taking place against Black farmers by lending institutions. And that sent set my dad back a long way," said Harvey, explaining that losing one crop his father had borrowed money to sow left the family with a debt they're still dealing with today. Harvey’s father was resilient, though. With declining returns from row crops, he converted the farm to a vegetable operation. The gamble paid off, and today, the 86 acre farm produces yellow squash, zucchini, sweet potatoes, and small quantities of butter beans, peas, and greens.
Mostly, Harvey leaves the farming to his brothers and spends time in the Delta Dirt Distillery he and his wife Donna built in Helena, Ark.'s historic Cherry Lane Street, about 20 miles from their land. "We had to trust ourselves, each other, and our instincts," he said. There were a lot of closed doors, from financing to locations to distributors. "There are barriers in the spirits industry for Black people, just like they are in everything else. And you don't learn those until you go through that,” he said.
Despite these hurdles, Harvey was inspired by his family's ingenuity. He liked the idea of having a business that used the farm's produce and maintained his link to the land and his family. "My younger brother mentioned a guy making sweet potato vodka. That fascinated me. I said, 'Let's figure out how to do that.'" Harvey and his son began experimenting in their garage, eventually perfecting a blend of sweet potatoes and corn. "It doesn't taste like a root vegetable. It goes down so smooth, with a subtle earthy taste," Harvey explained.
He credits his youngest son Thomas, who went to Distillery School, with getting the ratio right. And it was also his sons who put the product on the market, entering competitions. In the first one, they won double gold. They have since won the highest award in every competition they've entered winning “three or four double golds, triple gold, and best in class from the American Craft Spirits Association.” And then this year, they were certified platinum at the San Francisco World Spirits Competition.
Harvey's family is part of the small group of people farming differently in the Delta. Just 0.19% of planted acres in the mid-Delta area are speciality crops. These earn more for farmers than row crops, generating 1.08% of Mid-Delta revenues. This is also true nationally, with speciality crops making up 1.9% of planted acres across the country but 14.2% of revenues. While increasing speciality crop production in the Delta offers an economic opportunity, it also comes with higher production costs, intensive management, and consideration of diverse soil types and climate conditions.
That's partly what excited Harvey about The Next California project, a World Wildlife Fund initiative that aims to create an ecosystem where Delta farmers can grow speciality crops and access cold storage, processing, markets, and distribution. "It's about de-risking the process for farmers and creating a supportive infrastructure," said Julia Kurnik, Senior Director for Innovation Startups on WWF’s Markets team.
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