Vermont distillery debuts Snowdrop Gin sanitizer
BRATTLEBORO, Vt. (AP) — The Saxtons River Distillery has joined other Vermont craft distilleries in doing what they can to solve the widespread shortage of hand sanitizer during the coronavirus crisis.
The Brattleboro-based distillery is now making super high-proof gin, which is double the alcohol content of its usual award-winning Snowdrop Gin. The 170-proof gin (85 percent alcohol) can be used with either glycerin or aloe vera gel to make hand sanitizer. You can also add essential oils for a nice scent, said Alicia Porter of Saxtons River Distillery.
“We are making a high quality alcohol to be used for making sanitizing products,” said Porter. She said the company is working with Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center in Lebanon, N.H., Cheshire Medical Center in Keene, N.H., and is talking to Brattleboro Memorial Hospital, as well as the Vermont Food Bank, to meet their hand sanitizer needs in the pandemic caused by the coronavirus.
Since the coronavirus erupted in China in January and made the jump to the United States several weeks later, people have been hoarding hand sanitizer, among other products. Since then, thousands of people have caught the virus and hundreds died, leading to a massive shut down of American life and business to try and contain the virus.
“Our bar is closed, but we’re still open,” Porter said.
Gov. Phil Scott earlier this week ordered all bars and restaurants closed by 2 p.m. Tuesday, with the idea that the close contact in such social places would foster the virus being easily transmitted from person to person.
Porter said Saxtons River, which also uses the name Saxtons Distillery, wants to keep all its staff employed and started last week producing the extra high-test alcohol that is the base for the hand sanitizer.
She said they are selling it in large Snowdrop Gin bottles containing 750 ml, with the price at $21 a bottle.
She said the price is as low as the distillery could make it.
“One of the 750 ml bottles can make five gallons of sanitizer,” she said.