Crafted by Harvey Williams Jr. at Delta Dirt Distillery, a sweet-potato-kissed spirit honors family heritage in every pour.
Story by Bryan Hendricks
Encoded within the label of a “Deep Roots” bottle is a tale of triumph from the Mississippi Delta dirt. Deep Roots is a recent creation of Harvey Williams Jr., a sweet potato farmer who founded Delta Dirt Distillery in Helena, Arkansas. The name, “Roots,” hints at the Williams family’s African American heritage, as does the dark caramel color, which Harvey Jr. calls “Arkansas Brown.”
Its mash bill is typical of a Tennessee whiskey or Kentucky bourbon, but with an additional ingredient that puts it in a class of its own. Sweet potatoes are the X factor in all but one of the spirits produced by Delta Dirt Distillery, a success story not just for the Williams family, but for a community working to put its best days ahead.
Harvey Jr., 57, a longtime engineer in the food services industry, intended to return to his hometown to help his father modernize operations on his small farm. Harvey Sr.’s visit to an agricultural vegetable conference in North Carolina revealed the economic potential of sweet potatoes. The vision broadened when Harvey Jr. saw the potential in distilling vodka from sweet potatoes. The product became so popular that Harvey Jr. narrowed his focus to a miracle that became Delta Dirt Distillery. The enterprise has been so successful that Delta Dirt has introduced its award-winning spirits across the Southeast and into the Midwest.
“The inspiration for starting this was more for the farm than a distillery,” Harvey Jr. says. “My brother and dad didn’t have enough land to do row cropping, so he turned to vegetable farming. When they came back from this vegetable conference, my brother was really excited about what they were doing with sweet potatoes in North Carolina. A guy there had sweet potato vodka. From there, my mind was off to the races thinking, ‘I could do that’!”
Once one of the wealthiest cities in the Mississippi River Delta, Helena is now one of the most financially distressed, as is its home, Phillips County. The county hemorrhaged talent for decades, and Harvey Jr. joined the migration. He earned an agricultural engineering degree from the University of Arkansas and worked the next five years as a plant and product engineer for Cargill, an international agribusiness conglomerate with a presence in 70 countries.
Harvey Jr. left Cargill and spent the next 20 years with Sara Lee. His experiences in the corporate world gave Harvey Jr. the knowledge and perspective he needed to create his own brand.
“When I went to Sara Lee, I did project engineering work, procurement work, and IT,” Harvey Jr. says. “I did a number of things with that company that helped me learn and grow in multiple functions and disciplines beyond engineering. Each one of those jobs helped prepare me for what was coming down the road. I had no idea I would be managing my own contracts for my own company or engineering for my own manufacturing plant. I don’t have a maintenance man, so I do my own maintenance on my own equipment. It helped me to be able to do some of the things that I have to do for this business.”
Helena was a curious location to establish a boutique distillery. A river port is the town’s lifeblood. There is no thriving craft brewery scene, no vibrant arts scene, no hipster underground or indie music scene. But Helena/West Helena is home to the King Biscuit Blues Festival, one of the nation’s premier music events. The Mississippi Delta birthed the Blues, a genre that exemplifies the human will to scorn adversity and poke the eyes of convention.
“Blues music sprung from the fields and the dirt of the Delta,” Harvey Jr. says. “This area produced some of the greatest talent. It was real, and that’s probably what helped make it so passionate. They could feel what was being said in song.”
