Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Distillery stops making spirits, starts making hand sanitizer
South Florida police officers, many holding boxes of empty plastic bottles, lined up outside ChainBridge Distillery in Oakland Park when they heard about the distillery’s newest product.
Margate training officer Amy Kitching arrived with 26 multicolored bottles, handing them off to ChainBridge co-owner Bela Nahori and his mother, Agnes, who disappeared into a room with a gleaming copper still.
Moments later, they re-emerged with 26 bottles filled with homemade hand sanitizer.
“I’ve been wanting to come here a long time,
but not under these circumstances,” said Kitching, slicking her hands with sanitizer from one bottle. Her coworker Gia Shaw, of Margate Fire Rescue, sniffed the liquid. “It’s actually odorless,” she says.
Clearly, this was no ordinary cleaning supply run. Last week, Nahori stopped producing bottles of apple brandy and sugarcane-distilled vodka and pivoted to pumping out high-alcohol sanitizer.
“Basically, we’re an over-the-counter drug store right now,” Nahori said with a laugh.
As the COVID-19 pandemic has spread, dire shortages of basic toiletries and commercial hand sanitizer with at least 60 percent alcohol have spurred distilleries across the country into action. Over the weekend Nahori, who runs the distillery with his wife, sister and parents, handed out 1,000 bottles of sanitizer to the public and first responders in Fort Lauderdale and Oakland Park. Hollywood police and the Broward Sheriff’s Department are expected later this week. A volunteer firefighter crew in the town of Ashford, Conn., even reached out to get their hands on ChainBridge’s bottles.
For now, anyone can pick up a free 30-milliliter bottle of hand sanitizer at the distillery at 3500 NE 11th Ave, Nahori says. The limit: one bottle per person. Vodka or brandy purchases ($24.99-$32.99) also come with a free bottle.
Nahori got the green light last week to bottle hand sanitizer from the federal Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau and the Food and Drug Administration. He halted brandy and vodka production instantly.
“We stopped doing tastings and tours last week. I’ve only been focusing on making sanitizer,” says Nahori, whose recipe comes from the World Health Organization website. “We’re trying to make as much as we can.”
Making hand sanitizer is easy, he says, requiring just four ingredients: sterilized water, hydrogen peroxide, glycerin and, of course, ChainBridge’s sugarcane-distilled alcohol, basically high-proof vodka.
While over-the-counter Purell contains about 60 to 70 percent alcohol, ChainBridge’s batch is stronger, topping 80 percent, he says. EZ Puff Vapor Labs, a vaping wholesaler down the block, donated 10 gallons of glycerin. Oakland Park Mayor Matthew Sparks pitched in bottles of hydrogen peroxide. Each free bottle carries a label, which conforms to federal guidelines, Nahori says.
“It takes time and a lot of hard work,” says Nahori’s mother, Agnes, who estimates ChainBridge can make 10 liters of hand sanitizer daily, about the equivalent of three gallons of milk.
Nahori doesn’t see switching to hand sanitizer as a long-term business strategy, but it’s the “morally right” thing to help his community, he says.
Hand sanitizer is nearimpossible to find, even online, so when he heard ChainBridge bottled it down the street, electrician Francisico Beroiz paid a visit on Tuesday morning. Beroiz says his workers have struggled for weeks to stay clean in the field.
“My workers do jobs in people’s homes, touching people’s stuff constantly,” Beroiz says. “So this is a great idea because it keeps our employees safe.”