I’m still annoyed about the story of the man in Tennessee who hoarded hand sanitizer to sell. He donated it after the story hit the news thanks to this piece in the New York Times. (His brother had helped him purchase some of the bottles.) The Tennessee attorney general started investigating him for price gouging. It’s especially horrible because soap and alcohol-based products both can kill coronavirus, so he was happy to make a ridiculous profit off a potentially life-saving product that shouldn’t cost more than a few dollars and be widely available.
I’d never considered that distilleries might make alcohol for a purpose other than drinking, but that’s what a bunch are doing: Several distilleries are shifting their operations in part to use their alcohol to create hand-sanitizer. How neat!
Distilleries are stepping in to help combat the hand sanitizer shortage by using the alcohol in their facilities to create their own alcohol-based solutions. Some are packaging it in small bottles while others are encouraging people to bring in their own containers for refills.
Old Fourth Distillery in Atlanta started making hand sanitizer and distributing it for free on Thursday.
“Due to the recent reports of outages and low supply in our community, We have decided to provide hand sanitizer free of charge to anyone in need. Made with aloe vera gel and 95% ethanol,” the business wrote in an Instagram post last week.
But even that has run out.
Old Fourth Distillery’s solution has been so popular that by Saturday, its supply of homemade sanitizer had been cleared out. The business said in another Instagram post that it was expecting another shipment of ingredients on Monday and would resume production after.
Eight Oaks Farm Distillery in Pennsylvania on Monday produced the first of 20 bottles of sanitizer that are for charitable groups. After, it will ramp up production to both donate to charitable groups and sell at farmers’ markets. The cost of a bottle is whatever people decide to donate.
According to CNN, Moonrise Distillery in Clayton, Georgia is making sanitizer with botanical gin infused with natural aloe vera, and Brooklyn’s New York Distilling is likewise using the base of one of its gins and mixing it with aloe vera. The first story that I’d seen about this was from Shine Distillery in Oregon:
Durham Distillery in North Carolina is creating a sanitizing solution that is 70% ethanol mixed with distilled water for colleagues in the hospitality industry to wipe down and clean high-contact fixtures like faucets, and doorknobs.
HELPING OTHERS: The owners of #Durham Distillery are making a sanitizing solution & are giving it out FREE to local hospitality businesses. Owners say they are in unique position to help, because they have a permit that allows them to have high-proof 95% alcohol on site. @WRAL pic.twitter.com/7dlfcJWLkz
— Sarah Krueger (@WRALSarah) March 13, 2020
LVMH, which makes perfume for Christian Dior and Louis Vuitton among other companies, is making hand sanitizer for 39 area hospitals amid fears that there may soon be a shortage of hand sanitizer in France.
These stories make my anxiety drop slightly. I’ve been washing my hands constantly, so much so that I’m going to start running out of lotion soon! I sincerely hope that all of this hand sanitizer makes some sort of dent in the number of coronavirus cases that will be diagnosed. I suppose we won’t necessarily know whether that’s the case, but I’m going to hope that it will be. Stay well, everyone!
I’m generalizing, but it’s people here in suburbia who are stuffing their cars. Just buy what you need people…and you don’t need all of that. So freaking selfish…and all of those Extreme Couponers should share their stash. People are grabbing things from each other like total trash pandas.
Trash Pandas is a new one for me…and also the name of my band, DIBS !!!!
😎😎😎
The Oregon distillery was the first story that I saw too. Love that other distilleries are doing this! Definitely one of the nicest stories to come out of the coronavirus outbreak.
While it is awesome that this small businesses here in the U.S. are doing this, IT IS THE GOVERNMENTS JOB TO DO THIS !!!! UGH !!!
It’s awesome that small businesses are doing this because our broken, dysfunctional, criminal government is not doing it. I’m assuming that none of the grifters have acquired large shares of stocks in hand sanitizers yet.
Exactly my thoughts.
I do know that Cuomo announced last week that NY would be making hand sanitizer, but that announcement caused a lot more talk about how horribly we treat prisoners than about hand sanitizer availability (not criticizing the very necessary talk about prison conditions and the need for reform, just saying I don’t know anything about how or if the hand sanitizer is being distributed).
NY has been making it, but they’re the only one I’ve heard of.
I’m happy to read stories like this, of people doing what they can to help. Thanks for posting it, CB & Quimby!
FYI if you must refill your bottles, please make sure they are Washed with hot soapy water and allowed to dry completely before refilling. It is not recommended to refill, but in these times we do what we gotta do. I work in a dental office and infection prevention and control is my thing.
Hmmmm I about to grab my Tito’s and aloe vera gel and make me a batch! I really love that they’re doing this.
This is so awesome. When the government won’t take care of it’s people, the people need to take care of each other.
Got 2 whisky distilleries virtually on my doorstep and neither as far as I can see are doing this.
Eight Oaks Distillery is in my neck of the woods. It’s cool seeing it making headlines. ✌🏻
Eight Oaks Distillery is in my neck of the woods. It’s cool seeing them making headlines. ✌🏻