You might not think your local booze maker is going to have what you need during a public health crisis. But they really just might.
As the United States faces a pandemic, concerned denizens have made moves to protect themselves, stocking up on disinfectants, masks, gloves, and, especially, hand sanitizer. The alcohol-based disinfectant is a quick-acting first line of defense that doesn’t require a stop in the restroom.
But by the second week in March, stores and online sources were reporting that they had run out of supply. On March 20, the FDA issued new relaxed emergency guidelines for the making of hand sanitizer to “provide flexibility to help meet demand during this outbreak.”
Rather than wait for the market to catch up, local distillers realized they could swap over from liquor production to provide immediate assistance to their communities.
Loon Liquor Co.
Loon Liquor Co. is a distillery in Northfield, Minnesota (pop. 21,000), co-founded in 2011 by high-school friends Mark Schiller and Simeon Rossi. Rossi had invited Schiller to a White Russian party where he served drinks made with his homemade coffee liqueur, and the idea for the distillery was born. Today, they produce thousands of gallons of vodka, gin, whiskey, and several liqueurs each year.Earlier in March, Schiller started looking into producing sanitizer just for the distillery cocktail room but saw varying standards online. “I didn’t want to do this for the public until I received guidance,” he said.
On March 18, the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB) released a statement that allowed any Distilled Spirits Permittee to start producing sanitizer immediately if following the posted WHO guidelines, a recipe that calls for 80 percent ethanol (or 75 percent isopropyl alcohol), 1.45 percent glycerol, and 0.125 percent hydrogen peroxide.
“I’m producing 95 percent alcohol to make vodka. I’ve got way over that,” Schiller said.
They needed to mix down that 95 percent base alcohol to the proper specification. “Any distiller knows how to do this. We do this all day long,” Schiller said.
For the two ingredients they didn’t have, glycerol and hydrogen peroxide, they reached out to their local cleaning supply company, Triton Chemical, to purchase five gallons of each. The company gladly donated both.
Said Schiller, “We had a whole batch [of base spirit] ready to be turned into product, the equivalent of about 1,000 bottles of liquor. We took all of it and put it immediately into sanitizer. We said, ‘The community needs it more than us.’”
