Two weeks after making its first batch of hand sanitizer, Cardinal Spirits is now producing it full-time.
CEO Adam Quirk says by the end of the day, the distillery will have produced 5,000 gallons of sanitizer since starting.
READ MORE: Local Distillery Making Hand Sanitizer Amid National Shortage
“On the production side, we’ve hit pause on spirits for now and transferred our bottling line over to make hand sanitizer,” he says. “It’s an incredibly dynamic situation. We’re pretty much constantly on the phone with suppliers to try to find the right materials.”
Cardinal Spirits has had requests from organizations all over the state. Hospitals, police stations, and eldercare facilities are just some of the organizations that have reached out. Quirk says a representative from a homeless shelter in Cincinnati, Ohio picked up a batch earlier this week.
“Monroe County Hospital was one of the first hospitals,” Quirk says. “We’ve helped numerous sheriff’s departments, the Bloomington police, all of the fire departments in our area.”
The recipe has changed since last time.
Now, each batch is made of purified water, vegetable glycerin, hydrogen peroxide and 270 gallons of denatured alcohol – not vodka – all mixed into a stainless-steel tote. Each batch produces about 350 gallons.
Quirk says the full-time switch to hand sanitizer production has allowed him to continue paying his tasting room employees.
More than half of Cardinal Spirits’ 60 or so employees are now on hand sanitizer duty.
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