Delta Dirt has a superfan known locally as Grandma Charlene. The matriarch, in her early 90s, has helped to spread the good word about this craft distillery far and wide. She proudly sports her Delta Dirt shirt almost everywhere she goes—including the doctor’s office, leading her physician to become a regular at the distillery’s tasting room.
This organic affection is emblematic of what Delta Dirt has built since opening its doors in Helena, Arkansas, in the spring of 2020. Run by two generations of the Williams family, the distillery fuses history, agriculture, community development, and award-winning spirits into a small business that stands for much more than quality liquor. The Williams family’s history and the land they farm are parts of what make Delta Dirt unique as the country’s first Black-owned farm distillery. It’s also a rare story of homegrown success in rural Phillips County, where the poverty rate of 30.5 percent is nearly triple the national average.
Delta Dirt, in short, is a hometown hero with a national presence.
“They’ve made their stamp here in more ways than one,” says Joseph Whitfield, executive director of the Phillips County Chamber of Commerce. “They’re creating that change we desperately need.”
Whitfield is a Helena native who left for New York City and returned to his hometown last year. He says that Delta Dirt’s tasting room is on par with any swank cocktail bar in Harlem, and it has given residents a gathering place of which they can feel proud. (This summer, Whitfield hosted his mother’s retirement party at the distillery.)
“It gives people a sense of pride that this is in their town, and it proves that great things do come out of Helena,” he says. “The narrative is so often that you have to leave to see success. You have to leave to find positive development. Delta Dirt represents that that’s not the case.”
Winning Loyal Fans
The distillery sells its products—its signature Sweet Blend Vodka, made from sweet potatoes, and its Tall Cotton Gin—in seven Southern states, but the tasting room is the business’s beating heart.
About 60 percent of the distillery’s sales happen at its tasting room, with the remainder going via distribution and direct-to-consumer transactions on ReserveBar. Collectively, those outlets will propel the distillery to almost 2,000 cases in sales this year.
“If someone walks through the door, more than likely they’re going to leave here a consumer, an advocate, an ambassador, without us really asking,” says head distiller Thomas Williams. He’s the son of Delta Dirt cofounders Harvey and Donna Williams, and he’s the great-great-grandson of “Papa” Joe Williams, who as a sharecropper in the late 1800s farmed the same land on which his family still grows sweet potatoes and corn today.
The Williams family’s rich story offers drinkers multiple points of engagement, whether through an interest in Black farm ownership, local agriculture, beverage tourism, or downtown revitalization. Yet the spirits speak for themselves: At the 2024 San Francisco World Spirits Competition, Delta Dirt’s Sweet Blend Vodka earned a rare platinum medal; that honor goes only to distilleries that win double gold for three consecutive years.
In 2023, Arkansas named Delta Dirt the state’s Tourism Attraction of the Year, recognizing its contribution in drawing visitors, delivering excellence in customer service, and enhancing the profile of its community. Such accolades are having a direct effect on the business: Delta Dirt received a round of angel investment last year from Pronghorn, an investment and business-development platform that accelerates Black-owned spirits brands.
“What helps me keep going is the reinforcement from everyone around us,” says Donovan Williams, Harvey and Donna’s other son and Delta Dirt’s operations manager. “We really never get bad reviews. When people tell you all over the place that you’re doing a great job and to keep it up, it makes you feel as if you’re doing something good.”
Delta Roots
Farming is in the Williams’ blood, and so is distilling. Papa Joe Williams’s son, U.D. Williams, sharecropped the same 86 acres as his father—however, in 1949, he used proceeds earned by selling his corn-liquor moonshine to buy the farm out of sharecropping.
Yet farming is never easy. Almost 60 years later, the Williams family was searching for a way to add value to the sweet potatoes and corn they’d grown for generations. When they heard about a distillery in North Carolina making vodka from sweet potatoes, they were intrigued. However, extracting the necessary sugar from sweet potatoes is labor-intensive, time-consuming, and far from efficient. It took Thomas and Donovan years to develop a commercially viable method, and they continue to refine it. (They decline to discuss the technical specifics).
“That’s the reason more people aren’t using sweet potatoes,” Thomas says. “It’s very difficult to extract fermentable sugars out of them. You can overheat and denature the sugar; you can underheat and fail to unlock the sugar. Donovan has been experimenting with trying to get the most sugar out of those sweet potatoes, and it’s improved dramatically.”
Having control over the main ingredient in their vodka—which makes up about 70 percent of Delta Dirt’s sales—has been a mixed experience. On one hand, Harvey says, it allows the family to control costs and quality. On the other, it adds operational complexity and requires significant time and labor. The goal is always to grow the entirety of the sweet potatoes needed for Sweet Blend Vodka, a goal that the distillery met in its first year. However, difficult harvests the past two years led the Williams family to buy sweet potatoes from a neighboring farmer to cover their needs. Even if the full batch can’t come from their own farm, they’re proud to keep the supply local.
That focus on the richness of Phillips County—its agriculture and people—has a multiplier effect, Whitfield says. In addition to supporting other farmers and recently hosting the National Black Farmers Association’s meeting, Delta Dirt plays a role in revitalizing Helena’s downtown Cherry Street. Since Delta Dirt opened its tasting room there, a blues lounge has moved in, and a new student-housing development is in the works.
“If we can empower local citizens and residents to understand that there’s a market for their ideas, and that people do want to shop local and support, Delta Dirt is a great example of that,” Whitlock says. “It’s a domino effect.”
The distillery’s most recent project aims to make its Arkansas heritage even more explicit. A new whiskey called Deep Roots Arkansas Brown is an effort to create an answer to Tennessee whiskey and Kentucky bourbon. It’s made in the bourbon tradition: 54 percent corn grown on the Williams’s farm, plus rye and barley; it leaves the still at 160 proof and ages two years in new American oak. But it has a signature twist: sweet potatoes.
The U.S. Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau won’t allow it to be labeled as bourbon, but most consumers understand it as such. So far, the distillery has released two 53-gallon batches of Deep Roots: The first release sold out quickly, and the presale for the second sold out in four hours. Thomas Williams says he’s open to the five other distilleries in the state making their own versions of Arkansas brown, spreading Delta Dirt’s message: There’s lots to be proud of in the Delta.
“We hope it could be something others take note of,” Thomas says.
Far and Wide
Winning the hearts and minds of its immediate neighbors isn’t enough to fully support Delta Dirt. The Helena–West Helena statistical area lost 21 percent of its population between 2010 and 2020, according to the U.S. Census, and poverty is pervasive.
The buildings that once housed major employers—a Coca-Cola distribution center and a J.C. Penney, for example—now stand vacant. The Williams family says that while its neighbors support what Delta Dirt is doing, many can’t afford to buy a $40 bottle of vodka or gin. That reality necessitated wider distribution into Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee, and other nearby states where Delta Dirt can provide boots-on-the-ground sales support.
Direct-to-consumer sales, facilitated by ReserveBar, is so far just a fraction of overall sales, but it’s important for spreading the distillery’s products to its most ardent and far-flung fans. As the brewery’s national profile grows—in August, it was featured on an AMC+ series called Distilled, presented by Pronghorn—online sales should be a way for Delta Dirt to capitalize on that attention. It’s a lesson the distillery has learned over time: Marketing efforts need to create opportunities for people to actually taste Delta Dirt’s spirits. Thomas calls it “see, sip, sale.”
“We’re starting to develop a template of what events we’re going to go to, based on certain criteria,” he says. “If we’re not going to meet those goals we’ve set, then no matter how awesome the opportunity might seem, we have to learn to say no,” he says. “That’s one of the biggest learning curves for us ... learning to say no to certain events just because we are still a very small team.”
One marketing initiative that’s borne fruit is the distillery’s emphasis on attracting tourism from Memphis, about 90 minutes away along the Mississippi River, and from Little Rock, two hours’ drive in the opposite direction. The business chose a marketing firm that was closely aligned with the state’s tourism board, and it bought a billboard in Little Rock. A Delta Dirty Shirley cocktail spotlight at JJ’s Grill, an Arkansas-based chain of sports bars, in celebration of Juneteenth also has helped Delta Dirt introduce itself to customers outside of Helena.
“We have proven that we’ve got a really, really good product, and we’re learning that the story is connecting with so many,” Harvey says. “The combination of those, it’s a formula that has on- and off-premise people saying, ‘Now we have an Arkansas brand that we can showcase, talk about, be proud of.’”
As its profile continues to grow nationally, the distillery keeps its eyes firmly fixed on the town and the farm that created it. Delta Dirt envisions a proud future for itself and for Helena, and it’s one that most locals are eager to be part of, too. The Chamber of Commerce sees the business as a template and catalyst for the future as it aims to connect owners of historic buildings in downtown Helena with grants for their remediation and renovation, and to offer greater economic incentives for new business creation in the county.
“My hope is to build on what Delta Dirt has done,” Whitlock says. “They took a chance when a lot of people said they were crazy and that it was risky. The fact they chose to put that business on Cherry Street, a declining main street, says a lot about the faith and vision they have. … I definitely see that their presence has sparked a lightbulb epiphany for people to say, ‘This can work.’”