Brooklyn Distillers Turn Waste Alcohol Into Hand Sanitizer

NEW YORK CITY – Driving through a mostly-shutdown New York City Monday afternoon, Louis Catizone was doing something that up until exactly one week ago would have been illegal: delivering alcohol to customers.

While New Yorkers practice social distancing and adhere to Governor Andrew Cuomo's "stay-at-home" order, Catizone makes local deliveries from Brooklyn-based St. Agrestis, the distillery he co-owners with his brother, Matt, at the curbside – taking special care not to make contact with his customers.

Along with the order, he leaves a small bottle of free hand sanitizer.

"Dealing with ethanol on a regular basis, we are uniquely positioned in a crisis like this to do some good," Catizone said. "It didn't require new licenses or different relationships than what we already had to have ethanol in place, so it felt like if we were going to be asking folks to support us, it was not just responsible but our chance to say thank you for their support."

On March 18, the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau announced it would allow distilleries to produce hand sanitizer without having to obtain further authorization.

The free hand soap that Catizone includes with each purchase is the same product that would be used at his distillery for sanitizer normally, but it has been modified to be more "skin contact-friendly," he said.

"It's otherwise considered to be waste alcohol because it doesn't have any consumable use anymore," he said.

Now that they have the ability to sell directly to consumers, St. Agrestis has partnered with Brooklyn-based Greenhook Ginsmiths to deliver their products as well. As they face a future that includes uncertainty about when restaurants and bars will reopen, Greenhook Ginsmiths has also begun making hand sanitizer.

"It's a very straightforward process to produce this hospital-grade hand sanitizer recipe," said Greenhook Ginsmiths founder Steven DeAngelo. "Right now, there's not a lot of demand on the gin side of things, with restaurants and bars being closed, so we're fortunate that it's allowed us to keep our employees at work for however long this takes."

Despite the ease with which DeAngelo and his team are able to produce the sanitizer, they are now facing a lack of materials – ethanol, glycerin, purified water and hydrogen peroxide – as the supply chain starts to feel the impact of the coronavirus pandemic. A typical batch of hand sanitizer at Greenhook could be made in hours to a day, if they have enough materials.

DeAngelo said he had known that local hospitals were desperate for hand sanitizer, but what he hadn't realized was how many other local organizations needed it, too, including police departments, post offices and construction sites.

"I'm getting calls all over the place," he said. "Everybody needs it and nobody has it."

Thanks to the ambitious work of two distillers at Brooklyn-based Kings County Distillery who researched World Health Organization and Centers for Disease Control guidelines for hand sanitizers, the distillery now has 1,000 bottles ready for the public. On Tuesday, patrons can log on to the distillery's website, make a donation, and schedule a time to pick up the sanitizer. While they are not charging a specific price for the sanitizer, they are suggestion a $5 donation to cover the overhead costs of production.

"It really allows us to be proactive, especially when a lot of people feel helpless and powerless right now," said CEO and co-founder Colin Spoelman. "So just to be able to do something for our community and our neighbors, really does feel impactful."

Spoelman said they will continue producing the sanitizer as long as it makes sense to do so.

"If we can keep doing it in a sustainable way, we'll keep doing it as long as we have resources to support it," he said. "

For Catizone, the most remarkable thing about what has happened in the past week is how everyone has come together to support one another.

"It's quite incredible if you think about it, that these bar and restaurant owners, not a single one has complained," Catizone said. "We all, I think, recognize that it's for the betterment of everybody. I'm just so proud to be part of this industry."