Governor spotlights Donavan Williams, Delta farm-to-spirit success story

Donavan Williams was named March’s Face of Arkansas, putting the Helena-West Helena distillery operator and his family’s farm-to-bottle business on display inside the Arkansas Capitol and at the entrance to Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders’ office. The monthly series pairs a portrait, written profile and short video with a framed photo of each honoree, and Sanders chose Williams as someone who helps Arkansas function, overcomes obstacles and leads locally.

For Williams, the recognition points back to 1949, when a sharecropping ancestor bought 86 acres in the Delta. More than seven decades later, Williams walks the same rows of sweet potatoes and corn that supply Delta Dirt Distillery on Cherry Street, where the family has turned farm production into a higher-value downtown business. Williams serves as operations manager for the Helena-West Helena operation.

Delta Dirt opened in the spring of 2020. The first bottles of Sweet Blend vodka were ready for private sale by late December 2020, and public distribution to Arkansas liquor stores began in November 2021. The distillery offers tours and tastings at its historic downtown Helena facility, with tasting room hours listed for Friday from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. and Saturday from 2 p.m. to 8 p.m. That makes the business both a production site and a local destination.

The company is run by Harvey and Donna Williams and their three adult children, Thomas, Donavan and TaHara Williams. Delta Dirt has been described as Arkansas’ first Black-owned distillery and, in some coverage, America’s only Black-owned farm-to-bottle distillery. Its shelf presence has grown with industry recognition, including a finalist nod for Best Flavored Vodka at the 2023 San Francisco World Spirits Competition and, later, a platinum medal after three consecutive double gold wins.

Those gains matter in Phillips County, where the U.S. Census Bureau estimated the population at 14,661 on July 1, 2024 and Helena-West Helena at 8,462. Phillips County’s poverty rate has been described as 30.5 percent, nearly triple the national average. Against that backdrop, Delta Dirt stands out because it keeps the farm, the brand and the bottling in Helena-West Helena, turning sweet potatoes and corn into a premium spirit and giving the county a visible example of value-added agriculture that can draw tourists, strengthen a local brand and widen its reach beyond the Delta.