Packaging Strategies, a sister publication of Beverage Industry, recently conducted a podcast with craft distillery Cardinal Spirits about how the company has shifted its operations from spirit making to creating hand sanitizer for those in need.

Cardinal Spirits, a craft distillery based in Bloomington, IN shares provides distilleries with its directions on how to make hand sanitizer.

Amid the Coronavirus Pandemic, U.S. Distiller Pivots to Supply Hand Sanitizer

In this podcast, Packaging Strategies News talks to Wuslich as he explains how helping the community kept him in business.

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Hand sanitizer is simply alcohol + emollient (skin softener) Here is what we’ve done:

• 10 Liters of GNS at 95% ABV
• 2 Liters of mineral oil
• 1.5 liters of RO water (any water would work)

You need to shake this up pretty good for it to dissolve. And unfortunately, it does come out of solution. We recommend you tell your guests to shake it up before using to redistribute the oil.

The basic recipe is 10L of GNS with 3.5L of some kind of emollient. This nets 14.5L of hand sanitizer at 80% ABV (what the FDA is now recommending)

Aloe is pretty expensive, and was unavailable in Bloomington. The general point of the post is that you can use any emollient, just make use of what is available to you. And while 60% is a good target, better to err on the side of more ABV and target 70% in case of measurement errors.

So if you have propylene glycol, you could use that:

• 10 Liters of GNS at 95% ABV
• 2 Liters of Propylene Glycol
• 1.5 liters of RO water

If you happen to have a bunch of coconut oil:

• 10 Liters of GNS at 95% ABV
• 2 Liters of Coconut Oil
• 1.5 liters of RO water

If you happen to have glycerin:

• 10 Liters of GNS at 95% ABV
• 2 Liters of Glycerin
• 1.5 liters of RO water

Stay clean, stay safe, and stay in business!