In the lead-up to the winter holidays, the founders of Provost Farm in New Iberia, Louisiana, always bring their Papa Noël statue out for his seasonal appearance. The “Cajun Santa,” who uses alligators to get around on Christmas Eve instead of reindeer, grips a thin stalk of sugarcane in one hand and, in the other, a three-pound box of Richard’s Krazy Cajun Sausage—a treat traditionally gifted to employees in southern Louisiana during the holiday season.
Owners Angie and June Provost set up the 3-foot tall figure in the middle of the farm’s event space, in between the mini-museum and a large room that’s used for everything from juicing sugarcane to promoting activism to, not least of all, dancing to classic tunes by regional hero Clifton Chenier, the King of Zydeco. “This is a space for joy,” says Angie, wearing a “Support Black Farmers” T-shirt.
While Provost Farm is growing sugarcane, some of it for the state’s nascent craft rum industry, the couple also established the farm in 2018 to raise awareness about systemic land loss experienced by Black farmers in the United States. “When I grew up, we had, in south Louisiana, probably close to 60 African-American cane farming families, spanning over 45,000 acres, but they are no longer there,” explains June, adding how they are now one of only four remaining Black-owned family cane farms in the state. Estimates vary as to the acreage these families hold, but some put it at 2,000 acres. “Those [other] acres are still being farmed; they’re just being farmed by white growers.”
A fourth-generation cane farmer, June lost his family’s 5,000-acre farm in 2014—a loss they alleged in a lawsuit four years later was largely a result of discriminatory lending policies that fast-tracked funding for white farmers and delayed loans for Black farmers. (The legal action was settled out of court.) Motivated to reverse the trend, the couple established the Provost Farm Heritage Center and Community Garden, a nonprofit site devoted to showcasing the contributions made to the sugar industry by Black farmers and engineers, raising awareness about the legacy of discrimination that’s led to land loss, and building communities that are working to improve food security.
They also grow sugarcane, albeit in much smaller quantities than before, on their 80-acre farm. The annual harvest is earmarked for different uses. Some has been made into cane syrup, which they sell themselves, and this harvest some has been pressed, fermented, and turned into rum at Roulaison Distilling Co, a small New Orleans facility founded eight years ago by Patrick Hernandez and Andrew Lohfeld, the latter formerly a distiller at the acclaimed Kings County Distillery in Brooklyn, New York.
Details are still fuzzy, but the plan—roughly speaking—is for Roulaison to release 100 or so cases of a co-branded, unaged rum made exclusively with Provost cane juice later this year, which would be a unicorn in the rum world (at large, not just in Louisiana) because it comes from a single farm. The process of turning cane into refined sugar (and its byproduct, molasses) is an industrial process and not an artisanal one, so it's generally difficult to trace a bottle of rum’s roots to a specific patch of dirt. Roulaison and Provost will get around this by bypassing the mills and using their own small presses.
Visiting during the roulaison (or “rolling”) season, which takes place from September or October to mid-January, means seeing pressing in action. June grabs a large piece of cane and feeds it through his powerful mini-press and, in an instant, a sweet, grassy tang fills the room. Moments later, there’s a small cup of opaque, green-tinged liquid in my hand. It’s mildly sweet, has a hint of fruit and a distinctly earthy flavor, possibly from the mud and grit that had clung to this cane and is now floating around in the cup.
There are currently only 17 producers turning cane into rum in the region, and after visiting nearly every one, it is clear that these qualities are part of the DNA of Louisiana rum, a burgeoning category with a past, present, and future that is far more complex and complicated than its ephemeral flavor notes. As a growing number of producers are working to ignite a new chapter for the state’s rum makers, many are trying to build a pathway that acknowledges and aims to redress the darker parts of the spirit’s history—the ripples of which can still be felt today.
The first distilling license in Louisiana was issued to Celebration Distillation in New Orleans’ French Quarter in 1995, but because the operation was temporarily closed due to a fire in May 2023, the honor of being the oldest, continually run distillery in Louisiana instead goes to Wildcat Brothers Distilling—“which I think is hilarious, because we only started in 2011 and we have license number two,” says president Tait Martin.
Wildcat was a one-person operation with a claim to being the smallest legal distillery in the state until 2019, when founder David Meaux “suckered” his old college pal (Martin) away from his life “professoring” at the University of South Florida to join him in expanding the operation. Fourteen rum distilleries have since opened in Louisiana.
Martin leads a walk around his roadhouse distillery and “clubhouse,” a tasting room in a rustic space once home to Gator Cove, an old family restaurant backing on to a swampy alligator pond. “You see the way that the landscape goes down over there?” Martin asks, pointing at a slope in the direction of the pond beyond. “This is something known as the Teche Ridge, and it was the original levee for the Mississippi River, which used to come through here. All the silt and everything made the soil just incredible for sugarcane, which is why this is the Napa Valley of sugarcane.”
It’s not just the soil that makes this region well-suited for growing sugarcane—it’s also the climate. These parts are intensely hot and humid in the summer, and there’s a chill in the winter that boosts sugar levels in the cane, making the juice easier to ferment once pressed.
“Sugar production is pretty much restricted to the southern counties—which, in Louisiana, are called parishes—bordering the Gulf of Mexico,” explains Rick Halpern, a social historian at the University of Toronto whose work has focused on race and labor. “It only extends 150 or 200 miles to the north because, if you go too far above the frost line, it becomes really difficult to make a profit growing sugar cane.”
A cold snap can ruin an entire harvest in the North, but in the southern parts of the state, cane has become central to the identity of the region, which in some years surpasses Florida to become the biggest producer in the country. Today, roughly 2 million tons of raw sugar is processed annually by the state’s 11 sugar mills, at least eight of which were established in the 1800s. In his research, Halpern found some correspondence from a late 19th-century planter who wrote: “All that matters is how many acres we have in cane. That provides our identity and nothing else will do.”
A unique pattern of settlement has made Louisiana a state with a distinct identity, he adds. This land was once inhabited by the indigenous peoples of the Chitimacha, Choctaw, Natchez, Tunica, Houma, Atakapa, and Caddo peoples, and later colonized by Spain, France, and the former British settlers who called themselves “American” at the time of the Louisiana Purchase.
“In some ways, the agriculture in Louisiana has more in common with the Caribbean than it does with the cotton economy in, say, neighboring Mississippi, or the tobacco economy in the Carolinas and Virginia,” Halpern says. “In fact, it’s not too much of an exaggeration to call Louisiana, or at least Louisiana agriculture in the 19th century, the northernmost fringe of the Caribbean, rather than a southern part of the United States.”
With one glaring exception: Just about everywhere you go in the Caribbean today, there exists a well-defined and deeply cherished rum tradition with a legacy that’s proudly on display.
By contrast, in Louisiana, you have to dig for rum’s roots. There’s no question sugarcane spirits were made around these parts prior to 1995, but there’s a serious knowledge gap between historical reports of initial forays into the production of tafia, a rudimentary cane spirit, and what contemporary producers are making with cane now. One of the state’s only known dedicated rum distilleries was established in the 1780s by Cuban settler Joseph Solis and, despite the fact that it made a hefty profit, it failed to spark an industry, something rum historian Richard Foss attributes to the Spanish colonists’ failure to legalize, regulate, and encourage the rum trade. Others have suggested compounding factors, including the Civil War but, in a nutshell, the historical record is opaque, confusing, and not particularly suggestive of a cherished and vibrant pre-Prohibition rum culture that defined the regional identity.
“All that matters is how many acres we have in cane. That provides our identity and nothing else will do.”
What we do know is that, leaving aside questions of cultural appropriation (Black and indigenous slaves in Barbados are often credited with the spirit’s invention), the sugar empires that rose in the 18th century simply wouldn’t have existed without the forced labor of enslaved Africans. This is especially true in Louisiana, where enslaved people were “producing a quarter of the world’s sugarcane supply by the 1840s,” according to the New York Times’ 1619 Project. “The value of enslaved people alone represented tens of millions of dollars in capital that financed investments, loans and businesses. Much of that investment funneled back into the sugar mills.”
At Porchjam—an industrial facility in mid-city New Orleans, with an eclectic crew of people who are passionate about their stunningly bright, crisp, grassy, and complex cane rum, Cheramie—the team explain how they try to make their contributions toward rectifying rum’s inequitable roots by actively working to be “very much a part of the community” in New Orleans. As part of that effort, in 2022 they started working on a project with Turning Tables, a local organization that advocates for Black and brown voices in the hospitality industry by offering education, resources, mentorship opportunities, and externships for students who are accepted into the program.
The collaboration culminated in a special edition rum called Rhum Pou Moun-La (“rum for the people”), made by student Arionne Ballard as part of her externship program. Ballard went to Porchjam to learn the entire distillation process, starting with cleaning the fermenters and culminating in making her own expression. The rum was released in November of 2023, and Ballard still works at the distillery now.
Rhum Pou Moun-La, which, incidentally, makes a mean Daiquiri, is sold at several liquor stores around New Orleans. Of course, it’s also found on the back bar at many restaurants in the Crescent City, where it’s a point of pride. “This [rum] truly represents community and unity,” says Touré Folkes, executive director of Turning Tables.
For Porchjam, it’s important not only to initiate projects that bring the community together, but also to be involved in a frank conversation about inequities in the category.
“We have to acknowledge the distinct, diverse, and very troubled history of how rum was made in the Caribbean and the U.S.,” says chief marketing officer Joshua Goldstein. “We cannot, and should not, hide the fact that the spirit was built off the backs of enslaved people and there are continuing issues today for minorities and people of color in the rum and sugarcane industry.”
Others try to make connections with the community and land in different ways, including Roulaison’s Andrew Lohfeld, who bypassed the sugar processing giants and bought cane directly from the Provosts—trucking it to the distillery and juicing it in-house. He hopes to illustrate the Provosts’ story on the label of the finished product to help raise awareness and money.
Given the depth of systemic discrimination and inequality within this space, some of these gestures can seem like putting a Band-Aid on a bullet wound. It seems significant—possibly even hopeful—though, that so many producers are going beyond land acknowledgments and engaging in concrete actions.
Perhaps some of the candor about the situation and energy spent working on community initiatives sprouts from the fact that the legacy of settler colonialism, slavery, and modern Jim Crow is a little more obviously a part of the day-to-day in this region than in many other parts of North America. When you’re driving around, looking at a horizon often dominated by oil refineries, you can often smell, taste, and breathe in caramelized sugar in the air from farmers burning their cane fields before they harvest. Although the damage inflicted on the environment and peoples is everywhere in the Americas, it’s probably easier to lose sight of it in some regions than it is in Cajun country.
It’d be next to impossible to ignore that legacy at Alma Plantation and sugar mill, a large enterprise northwest of Baton Rouge that has the distinction of being the only working mill with its own cane fields. Twenty-five hundred acres to be exact. Although the mill wasn’t established until 1844, the agricultural element—which consisted of both cotton and cane farming—was established by Julien Poydras in the 1780s. Poydras is a celebrated Louisiana figure who owned six plantations and over 1,000 enslaved people, some of whom allegedly planned a well-documented rebellion on the estate in 1795 and were put on trial after the conspiracy was discovered. Twenty-three were hanged and then decapitated; 31 others were flogged and sentenced to hard(er) labor.
Poydras died in 1824. The new owner built a sugar refinery 20 years later and, 15 years after that, in 1859, it was acquired by George Pitcher, whose descendants still have ownership of the plantation. It’s run today by his great-great granddaughter, Olivia Stewart, owner of Oxbow Rum Distillery.
“Given the depth of systemic discrimination and inequality within this space, some of these gestures can seem like putting a Band-Aid on a bullet wound. ”
Stewart’s family has owned Alma plantation for five generations. And while she doesn’t call all of the shots at the sugar mill, she is open about addressing her family’s connection to enslaved people, offering details about what she’s trying to do now to support local residents whose families have descended from slaves of the 19th century and laborers from the Jim Crow era. That includes working with organizations like Turning Tables, which advocate for equity in the hospitality industry, and the Big River Economic and Agricultural Development Alliance in Baton Rouge, which operates farmers markets, advocates for food policy, and more.
“I see it as my responsibility to give back to the local community of color and to work with locally owned nonprofits run by people of color, especially in Pointe Coupée Parish, a very marginalized rural parish,” says Stewart.
While it’s somewhat easy for rum producers to do special releases and raise money for organizations like Turning Tables, it’s much harder to deal with the systemic conditions that have led to the loss of land for Black farmers: rural gentrification, alleged discriminatory lending practices, as well as intimidation and harassment. It is a problem that, arguably, has the most devastating impact on equity, particularly in Louisiana, where the land loss experienced by Black cane farmers is similar to total land loss experienced by Black farmers in other states across the country.
In some periods since the Emancipation Proclamation, Black and brown farmers in the United States have made gains. The most significant growth period was between the Civil War and World War I, when Black farmers increased their stake from an estimated 3 million acres in 1875 to over 16 million in 1910. This trend began reversing soon after, though, and as a result of discrimination, intimidation, and state-sanctioned violence that became especially vicious in the 1920s, Black farmers more or less consistently experienced land loss until the late 1990s, when ownership was reduced to the same number of acres as were held in 1875. That land loss has been valued at over $300 billion. There was a brief period around 1950 when Black ownership of farmland increased, but in other periods, including the very recent past, modern Jim Crow laws and discriminatory practices have generally led to devastating land losses.
Louisiana’s land ownership, however, has also been shaped by a few unique features. Historian Rick Halpern points out how calling Louisiana cane country the “Napa Valley of sugarcane” alludes not only to soil and climate but also to how hard it is to buy property. Land values are hard to estimate, since no two properties are alike and proximity to towns and mills are important considerations, but one local real estate agent remarked he’d be “surprised” to see a small tract in a good location go for less than $5,000 per acre. That’s almost $1,000 more than the average cost of farmland across the U.S., according to the USDA’s Land Values data.
Worse still, when it comes to inequity and the possibility of buying in, there’s a disproportionately large number of big landholders here, including Alma, a 3,000-acre property, of which 2,500 acres are cane fields, and Laurel Valley Sugar Plantation, whose 5,000 acres represent the largest surviving cane plantation in the country. Unlike most other southern agricultural regions, most of the plantations in Louisiana were never broken up. And thanks to a quirk of Civil War history, the southern parishes were temporarily exempted from the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863. Louisiana abolished slavery the following year, but the extension of legal slavery for this brief window gave plantation owners time to devise a new contract labor system that saved most big agricultural estates—many of which are still intact, even though some have changed hands.
“A lot of times when folks hear our story, they’ll want to say, ‘Well, all farmers have it bad’,” Angie Provost says. “And of course they do. But those problems stem from the fact that we’re dealing with issues of the past that have not resolved themselves and are likely to trickle down to all of us in society.”
In addition to the annual roulaison, from which farmers make their annual salary, farm ownership represents many other important things, including access to affordable and healthy food, a sense of place, and whether or not they have anything to leave to their kids—a.k.a. intergenerational wealth.
At its core, though, it’s about equity and autonomy. And, of course, identity.
“All that matters is how many acres we have in cane,” as that planter once said. “That provides our identity and nothing else will do.”
“A lot of times when folks hear our story, they’ll want to say, ‘Well, all farmers have it bad.’ And of course they do. But those problems stem from the fact that we’re dealing with issues of the past that have not resolved themselves and are likely to trickle down to all of us in society.”
Although few would express it precisely this way in contemporary times, it still flicks at the fundamental problem—and the challenges ahead. Land reform and reimagining the firmly entrenched sugar industry so that Black and brown farmers can reclaim their acres would require intensive social and legislative changes.
Reforming sugar agriculture would be, as the saying goes, like changing the course of a cruise ship. By comparison, the agile small rum distillers have supported the community and invented new traditions while manning a tiny fleet of Hobie Cats. It’s on a totally different scale and it’s surely not the same thing but, by inventing an entirely new rum industry and new traditions, at least farmers and distillers alike are showing the promise that can be found in charting a new course.
Words by Christine SismondoIllustrations by Colette Holston
