Cane and Label

How long would you wait for a drink? A few minutes, while the bartender cleans a glass? A few hours, while your cabernet decants? For Walter Tharp, it’s been over four years since he set out to make a respectable glass of his very own rum. In late May 2017, Tharp at last launched Cane Land Distilling, an estate distillery of his family’s Alma Plantation.  With Cane Land, whose operations and taproom are located on the fringes of booming downtown Baton Rouge, Tharp aims to take the rich history of hand-craftsmanship and agricultural preservation of Alma Plantation to the next level. 

Originally owned by Julien Poydras, Alma is Pointe Coupee Parish's only operating sugar mill, and one of just eleven sugar mills still operating in the state of Louisiana. Poydras sold the property to David Barrow of Afton Villa and George Pitcher, who became the sole owner in 1859. Named after Barrow’s daughter, Alma, the plantation has been sold just this once, and descendants of the family still own it today. 

Sugar has been grown and refined at and around Alma Plantation since 1844. Today, Alma produces 370 million pounds of sugar and seven million gallons of molasses each year. In the heart of the rich Louisiana Delta, the alluvial topsoil beds in the farmlands surrounding Alma can reach fifteen feet deep, providing the most flavorful premium cane. At a wedding in Guatemala in 2013, Tharp heard from other guests, who were intimately familiar with the sugar mill industry, that Alma Plantation was missing out on a huge opportunity. Most sugar mills around the globe have their own rum distilleries, it so happens.  Why didn’t Alma?

Tharp returned to the States, where he set about doing all the research he could on how to build a distillery from the ground up to make the most out of Alma’s prolific sugar cane crops. He sought the wisdom of sugar mill and distillery owners from all over the world, but then the plans slowed, like molasses dripping down its can. Tharp claims the biggest obstacle he faced in developing Cane Land was navigating state and federal laws, some dating back nearly a hundred years to Prohibition days, and the scrutiny they placed on a new distillery. But Tharp pressed on. “I never thought of giving up. Many people might have,” said Tharp. “I am committed to preserving the legacy of Alma Plantation and the folks who run it every day. And once I had investors on board for the distillery, I was not going to let them down.”

The Taste of Alma 

It isn’t just any hooch you’ll find at Cane Land, whose spirits (the distillery also produces vodka from the Alma sugar) enjoy the rare classification of “estate-bottled.” Even rarer is Cane Land’s rhum agricole, currently the only version made in the United States. Rhum agricole is an intensely grassy, earthy spirit; it’s generally higher proof than rum and boasts a single ingredient. Made simply with locally grown sugarcane, many consider rhum agricole to be the purest form of rum. 

There’s one exception to Cane Land’s local sourcing. As a tribute to the earliest methods of shipping spirits, the distillery had barrels of five-year-aged whiskey travel a week and a half by barge from Owensboro, Kentucky, down the winding Ohio and Mississippi rivers. Once it arrived, the now-labeled Original Mississippi Floated Whiskey (OMFW) was finished in French Cognac barrels at Cane Land. 

Spirit, Sing

Jonny Ver Planck, Head Distiller and Vice President of Operations, lets his industry experience blend with his past as a sound engineer as he flows through each step of the complicated distilling process. “It’s a lot like music,” he said. All the different details, or notes, of the process, explained Ver Planck, have to work together to make the most successful and desirable finished products. He also believes in being close to the source of the sugar. After years of shipping sugar from Louisiana to his past distilleries, Ver Planck said, “I wanted to get closer to the cane.” So when the opportunity to head distilling operations at Cane Land became available, Ver Planck thought it was a perfect fit, packed up his family, and headed south for Baton Rouge.  

Cane Land chases the latest in distilling techniques, barrel aging processes, and environmentally friendly methods with traditional practices that have been handed down for generations. It’s a blend of ingenuity and devotion to the past that sits well with Tharp. “There were plenty of people who said I was crazy, but when someone says ‘You can’t ...’ that just makes me more eager and determined to accomplish my goal,” said Tharp. “I’m proud that we’ve accomplished something that will extend Alma’s legacy.” 

Contact the distillery to schedule a tour of its operations and learn how Cane Land’s spirits are made from cane to cocktail, then sip some craft drinks at the bar or in the courtyard.