Good spirits

LOCAL DISTILLERIES, WINERIES AND BREWERIES ARE STEPPING UP TO JOIN THE FIGHT AGAINST COVID-19. REPORTS

When Dillon’s Small Batch Di Distiller in Beamsville, Ont., announced v via social media that it would be making h hand sanitizer and giving it away to essen ential-service providers, it was bombar rded with requests. “It was doctors, policece dep departments, township fire departmen ents, EMS, seniors’ residences,” says foun nder Geoff Dillon, who is married to a frontlinef healthcare worker, a GP. “After t those first two weeks, we got organized, butb it was completely bonkers for the firs st 20 days. It was, ‘I have no idea what we e’re doing; we’re just trying to help peop ple.’ We all cried so many times.”

Dillon’s, known for its artis sanal gins, whiskies and rums, has noww supplieds sanitizer to more than 1,3000 f frontline organizations across Ontar rio, from Thunder Bay to the GTA. So far,fa it has outputted 115,000 bottles of sani nitizer, following the World Health Orga ganization’s “recipe”: ethanol, glycerol, hydr drogen peroxide and sterile distilled water r.

But the distiller has not actedted alone.alone “We just took a full tanker of Bellwoods beer yesterday,” says Dillon, explaining that the downtown Toronto brewery donated its product to be turned into sanitizer. “White Claw reached out and they’re also donating a bunch of White Claw [Hard Seltzer]. We’ve had one winery, Diamond Estates, who has donated 70,000 litres of wine now. We’ve had all sorts of people reaching out and saying, ‘What can we do? Anything: time, money, liquid.’ It’s been really cool to see.”

You’d be hard pressed to find a distillery, winery or brewery in Ontario that hasn’t stepped up to help in this effort, donating everything from beer mash to bottles, screw caps to labels that can be used in the making and packaging of sanitizer. From small startups to big-name manufacturers and distributors, alcohol companies are working together for the greater good, showing agility, entrepreneurial spirit and compassion.

There is precedent for this wave of support. During the early 1940s, all Canadian distillers were redirected to the production of “wartime alcohol”: highproof alcohol or ethanol used to make antifreeze, explosives, lacquer and synthetic rubber. From 1943 to 1945, Canadian distillers produced 68 million litres of high-proof alcohol annually for the war effort.

Now, as in the WWII era, spirit makers are well equipped to pivot—though we’re fighting a different type of war this time around. One woman arrived in tears at Spring Mill Distillery to pick up hand sanitizer for her sister, who, she explained, works at a hospital where staff have been told to ration their personal protective equipment. “That’s when it really hit home for me that we’re helping people substantially,” says Cooper Sleeman, manager of sales and marketing at the Guelph, Ont. startup, which has retooled its operations to help in the fight against COVID-19. “The desperation in some cases is astonishing.”

The industry’s behemoths are also walking the talk. Corby Spirits and Wine’s stable of brands are contributing in meaningful ways: Hiram Walker & Sons, its historic distillery in Windsor, Ont., has committed to providing 20,000 litres of hand sanitizer per week—1,000 litres have been delivered to St. Joseph’s Hospital and St. Michael’s Hospital in Toronto. Sister brand Absolut Vodka is donating $45,000 to support LGBTQ2S artists and performers impacted by the crisis, partly via the Glad Day Lit Emergency Fund in Toronto. People who serve alcohol are also seeing their livelihoods deeply affected by social isolation measures. Corby has partnered with the Wine & Spirit Education Trust to sponsor online career-furthering courses for 1,500 out-of-work bartenders across Canada. And bartenders and hospitality workers who have fallen into financial hardship will benefit from emergency assistance from the Bartenders Benevolent Fund, which has received a $100,000 joint donation from Corby and another of this industry’s big names, Diageo Canada, whose brands include Smirnoff, Guinness and Johnny Walker.

The impact of all this altruism will no doubt be far-reaching, not just for recipients but for the companies themselves, having proven that all that talk of integrity, quality and community was not merely a marketing slogan. Case in point: a line on the Dillon’s website which reads, “We just want to create something special, something to be proud of. This is who we are.”

“These sorts of moments tend to show what people are made of. That goes for individuals and leaders, and for brands, too,” says Liane Davey, organizational psychologist, author and consultant to corporations such as Amazon and RBC. “You knew which brands were going to be all over this, because it’s just how they’re wired. It’s like the beer companies in the U.S. who, when there’s a hurricane, immediately convert their facilities to begin canning clean water. They’re the ones that have figured out that they are part of a broader community.”

Cheers to that. This content was funded but not approved by the advertiser.