Spirit of helping: Distillery steps up to make Hand Sanitizer

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  • Workers bottle and package hand sanitizer made at Prairie Wolf Spirits distillery in Guthrie. Ledger photos by Blake Brown
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OKLAHOMA CITY – Until about a month ago, Prairie Wolf Spirits in downtown Guthrie specialized in making vodka gin, coffee liqueur, and sorghum rum (from sorghum grown in Wewoka that’s fermented and distilled).

But when the federal government announced a shortage of personal protective equipment essential in fighting the coronavirus, the Logan County distillery stepped forward to make hand sanitizer.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has waived dozens of regulations in recent weeks to boost production of key medical supplies, including coronavirus tests, ventilators, gloves, and hand sanitizers.

Distillers that produce vodka, whisky and other alcoholic drinks have been given some regulatory waivers by the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB, a department of the U.S. Treasury) that allow them to produce hand sanitizer. Many, including Prairie Wolf Spirits, have done that, but they produce much smaller volumes of alcohol than an ethanol plant could produce.

They also receive a tax-relief benefit in the new federal stimulus bill. The stimulus package provides that distillers don’t have to pay federal excise taxes on alcohol used for hand sanitizer through Jan. 1, 2021.

“It’s relatively easy to switch from making hand sanitizer that’s isopropyl alcohol-based, to using something a distillery makes that’s just as effective,” Prairie Wolf Spirits Manager Jeff Cole said.

That “something” is ethanol.

“We use medical-grade ethanol, hydrogen peroxide, glycerol and water in a recipe that’s provided through the TTB,” Cole said.

Corn-based ethanol is in great demand, primarily as a gasoline additive, but it also can be used to make hand sanitizer, which because of the pandemic is also in great demand among hospitals, nursing homes and first responders.

Ethanol is heavily regulated, “a carryover from the Prohibition era” when people went blind and even died from “bathtub gin,” Cole said.

The ethanol used by Prairie Wolf Spirits comes from Indiana and from Kentucky (“bourbon country,” Cole noted).

Alcohol typically is sold in glass bottles. But the Guthrie distillery needed soft- er containers for its hand sanitizer.

Cole said he first visited Container Supply in Oklahoma City, where he purchased various sizes of plastic containers, including 8-ounce squeeze bottles, 16-ounce plastic bottles, and 4-ounce spray bottles. And then he acquired a supply of half-gallon plastic milk jugs from another company.

“It’s been a collaborative effort,” he said.

When the word got out that Prairie Wolf Spirits was retooling to make hand sanitizer, “We got requests from first responders and sheriff’s departments in Oklahoma, Texas, Arkansas and Louisiana,” Cole recalled. “And they’d all tell us, ‘We need it now.’”

Cole was put in contact with Doug White of the Oklahoma Emergency Responders Assistance Program. “He assembles a list of who needs what,” Cole said. “Whenever we have a supply of hand sanitizer, he brings buckets and fills them up with the stuff and then delivers it to first responders” such as the Oklahoma Highway Patrol, county sheriff’s departments, and municipal police and fire departments.

Prairie Wolf Spirits still manufactures and sells its alcoholic beverages, although to a lesser extent. “We had to shut down some of what we typically do day-to-day” in order to manufacture hand sanitizer, Cole said. “We have the capability and the need is enormous.” The distillery donated 500 gallons of the product to White this past week, Cole said. “We do as much as we can.”

Donations have offset some of the expenses. An anonymous contributor “gave us a donation to buy more ethanol recently,” Cole said.

Prairie Wolf Spirits typically buys a semi-trailer truckload of ethanol once a month and stores it in

275-gallon containers in a warehouse next door to the distillery.

The distillery has a staff of four. Besides Cole, the manager, Eric Tekell is the distiller, and he has two assistant distillers.

They’re working 16 hours a day, six days a week.

“We take Sundays off,” Cole said.