JT Meleck sits on a working sweet potato farm along Church Point Highway in Branch, Louisiana, making it one of the most unusual distilleries you’ll find anywhere. Founded by the Meleck family who’ve been farming this land for generations, they decided to turn their sweet potatoes into something stronger than casseroles. The distillery opened in 2015 inside a converted agricultural building, where industrial farming equipment shares space with copper stills and oak barrels. They produce vodka, rum, and whiskey using their own sweet potatoes as the base, creating spirits that taste nothing like what you’d expect from Louisiana. The Meleck family didn’t just stumble into distilling—they spent years perfecting the process of fermenting sweet potatoes into alcohol, working with LSU’s agricultural program to dial in the science. What started as farm diversification became a full-scale spirits operation when they realized their sweet potato mash created incredibly smooth, naturally sweet spirits. The family still farms the land around the distillery, so depending on when you visit, you might see tractors hauling sweet potatoes right past the tasting room. Visitors get the full farm-to-bottle story here, walking through production areas where you can see sweet potatoes being processed into mash, then distilled in their custom stills. The tasting room feels more like a farm store than a slick distillery, which fits perfectly with the agricultural setting. You’ll taste spirits that genuinely can’t be found anywhere else, made from ingredients grown in the fields outside the window.