The late Aretha Jones was a cook and caterer whose food graced the tables of some of the most notable individuals and families in Arkansas.
Now, the beverages she once made to go along with that food are beginning to grace store shelves and will soon be on the menu at some restaurants, thanks to granddaughter Jacinda Jones. The unique and popular concoctions -- Sweet Mint Tea, Strawberry Lemonade with Basil, and Spice Jar Punch -- can be found at The Green Corner Store, and K. Hall and Sons Produce in Little Rock; make appearances Saturdays at the Little Rock Farmers Market in the River Market District; and are expected to be available soon at Capers and Jerky's Spicy Chicken and More as well as more restaurants in the city. Aretha's Beverages made its official debut with a June 28 ribbon cutting and sampling at the Little Rock Regional Chamber of Commerce.
The beverages are mixed and packaged at the Food Innovation Center, part of the University of Arkansas Division of Agriculture's Arkansas Institute of Food Science and Engineering in Fayetteville. Her sister, Janee Jones-Lankford, and her aunt, Eartha Daniel, help Jones out, as do other family members. Jones' mom, Sharon O. Jones, is "the cheerleader through it all." A film crew from P. Allen Smith's Garden to Table TV show recently filmed Jones and her relatives mixing up the beverages, which come in 16-ounce bottles ($3) as well as in gallons ($10).
Aretha's Punch originates from a simple choice Jones' grandmother was given during her younger days: Work the fields, or work the kitchen.
"My grandmother -- she'd always been a cook," Jones says, adding that Aretha Jones started out cooking for a Pulaski County family with whom she also traveled. The beverages, like other things she made, resulted from Aretha Jones' use of the main resource available to her at the time: bounty from the earth. In Atkins, where she grew up, there were not many other resources to pull from, so "she had to use what the earth gave her."
When Aretha married and settled down, she catered for her church, Bethel African Methodist Episcopal. Eventually she went to work for Mary Wildgen, original owner of RSVP Catering, who said she needed her. The former helped the latter get on her feet in the 1970s.
After leaving RSVP, Jones started doing her own catering. She was asked by various governors to handle special events. National celebrities who have tasted Jones' treats include singer Gladys Knight, former presidential candidate Dr. Ben Carson ("when he was just a doctor," Jones said at the ribbon cutting) -- comedian/activist Dick Gregory and, of course, Bill and Hillary Clinton. (Known also for her cookies, Jones sent cookies to the Clintons when Bill Clinton was president.) Other notable clients included Witt Stephens, the Rockefellers and former Little Rock mayor Jim Dailey.
So "growing up, all we knew was helping catering," says Jacinda Jones, 41. "Dignitaries literally coming by her home and sitting at her kitchen table," watching her prepare meals. "It was normal for doctors and lawyers ... to come by and just share their souls."
STARTED WITH THE TEA
Lillian Springer of Little Rock got to know Aretha Jones -- and her beverages -- when Jones cooked for Granite Mountain School. Springer's favorite of the beverages? The tea. "That's what she started with, and that's what I remember more than the others." Whenever Springer and her husband, the late Dr. Worthie Springer, hosted affairs such as their yearly Christmas brunch, Aretha Jones catered for them. "Her punch was always there," Springer recalls. "Everybody talked about it, and everybody wanted what was left over."
Yet another fan of the drinks is retired Pulaski County Circuit Judge Marion Humphrey, who was also a catering client of Aretha Jones.
"I do the punch more than anything else, but ... all of it's great stuff," Humphrey says. "My wife and I are just happy to see that the family has continued what the grandmother started. We think that's very beneficial to ... the community to see that they didn't let her ideas, her legacy, fade away."
It was when Jones broke her right arm that she enlisted a then-16-year-old Jacinda to help her prepare and cook the food. The younger Jones recalls: "I did it; I liked it; I got bit by it and I never let it go." She began working with her grandmother in an official capacity.
After graduating in 1993 from Parkview Arts and Science Magnet School, Jacinda Jones went to school in Iowa, then returned to the Natural State and enrolled at Arkansas State University at Jonesboro. She was known as the only one who could host dinner parties in her dorm room -- "just for any occasion and all occasions," Jones says. She'd prepare homemade goodies her grandmother sent her.
After leaving ASU, Jones became a caseworker at Positive Atmosphere Reaches Kids, the youth agency started by former NFL player Keith Jackson. Even there, she didn't stop cooking. "I was always in the kitchen at P.A.R.K" -- having taken on the food program for the children there -- as well as helping her grandmother, she says.
Aretha passed away in 2003, and Jones and her family realized there there was more missing from their lives than her grandmother: "We had no more gatherings; we had no more fellowships." Also, she found that people would ask if she knew how to make some of her grandmother's specialties. So Jones, her sister and other family remembers "started creating things people knew [my grandmother] for." A new catering company, Catering Inspiration "inspired by Aretha," began in 2004.
"The food was good, but they were always around the beverage table more so than the food," Jones said during the ribbon cutting. The family began concentrating on these, mixing beverages up by the gallon in a licensed kitchen in Little Rock. Then, she and her sister decided to sell them at the farmers market. They used their catering license to expand there during the summer of 2015.
Jones credits a mentor, Terica Richardson, for encouraging her to take Aretha's beverages further. She also credits Wal-Mart with getting her introduced to internationally known businesses in Northwest Arkansas. Startup Junkie Consulting -- for which the Walton Family Foundation is one of the funding partners -- is helping her develop the products for a bigger retail market. Through Startup Junkie, Jones expects the beverages to soon be available in a couple of Fayetteville-area restaurants.
Startup Junkie's Jeff Amerine was attracted to the authenticity behind Aretha's beverages: "How this particular product came about ... was really kind of compelling, and it was touching, and it was the Southern-lifestyle sort of thing that I think resonates. There's a lot of interest across all segments on authentic brands, and that's why we were really excited to be able to help her."
NECTAR OF LIFE
What do customers say about this line of beverages? That "it has given them life," Jones replies. The spiced punch makes many nostalgic, taking them back home to their "good old days."
Lottie Shackelford, former Little Rock mayor and longtime vice chairman of the Democratic National Committee, has been enjoying Aretha's Beverages since their namesake was alive and in business.
"Oh my gracious! That Southern minty flavor," Shackelford says of the tea. "It is awesome. Everybody wants it and likes it.
"I'm excited when I see young entrepreneurs [producing] something that has been tested; that's the beauty of this," Shackelford continues. "I'm just thrilled to death to see her branch out like this."
Mary Beth Ringgold, co-owner of Capers as well as Copper Grill and Cajun's Wharf, was introduced to Aretha's Beverages via a cold call from Jones. "I thought that they were good," she says of the drinks. She thinks they would fly well in the cocktail world, where ingredients can include fresh herbs. "But it's a little pricey for that yet."
Getting the price down and the volume up -- pairing with a big food distributor, leaving her available to front-sell -- will be a hurdle Jones will have to clear to get the products to the masses. "I'm sure there'll be some tough rows to hoe going forward. ... She's going to need a lot of help launching it," Ringgold says of Jones. But, the restaurateur adds, "she's got a great personality" and she believes Jones will go far. "I applaud her."
GOING TO THE NEXT LEVEL
Jones, who dreams of one day seeing Aretha's Beverages in big-box stores, already knows that taking the drinks further will be no easy task. In fact, the toughest aspect of bringing the drinks to the public so far has been "understanding the business part of it. You have to understand what it takes to make the product and not fail at it," she says, crediting Startup Junkie for providing help as well as her business manager, Monica Wyatt.
Springer has confidence in the commercial success of the drink line begun by the woman she regards as her own granddaughter. Putting Aretha's Beverages on the market is "the most wonderful thing that could ever happen," she says. "I think it's wonderful that [Jones] wanted to pursue her grandmother's dreams ... . I am really, truly proud of her."
Jones says she just wants to continue to "make people stop and love the moment," as her grandmother once did. "She used what God gave her and made it work."
And what would Aretha Jones say about the growing fame of her punch?
"That's good."
Style on 07/19/2016