Northwest Iowa Distillery Shifts Production To Hand Sanitizer

Spencer, Iowa — (RI) — Normally, they make vodka and whiskey. But a Spencer distillery has recently started making hand sanitizer, due to the national shortage.

Ryan Bare, the owner of the Century Farms distillery, has been making beverage alcohol in Spencer since last summer, but recently started making hand sanitizer.

They are making it available for institutional use at a very low price — $45 a gallon, which is about 35 cents an ounce.

Bare says stores in the Spencer area have been out of hand sanitizer and people have been asking him on the street if he could make his own.

(as said) “The Treasury Department which regulates us federally has published a recipe that distilleries can follow to make hand sanitizer,” Bare says. “It’s pretty much just a matter of taking existing product we that have and repurposing it for this alternate use. Basically we’re using inventory we have in stock and we have, honestly, enough to make 4000 units or more of hand sanitizer.”

Bare says corn alcohol needs just xanthan gum and essential oils added to become hand sanitizer.

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