Elmira moonshine distillery starts producing hand sanitizer

An Elmira, Ont. distillery has started manufacturing hand sanitizer to help frontline workers, cashiers and care homes in the area.

Murphy's Law Distillery started making the product last week as news of shortages grew amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

"With all the dilemmas surrounding the supply of hand sanitizer to the grocery stores and places for the front line workers to get it, we just decided to kind of pick up the ball, as well as many other Ontario and Canadian distilleries, and just start supplying," said Ben Murphy, the owner and operator of the distillery.

"The first people we ended up getting hand sanitizer to was Elmira Community Living here in town and supporting them and then basically we got other questions from other front-line workers."

The company has since offered their product to front-line workers on Facebook and has had calls from fire and police departments for the product.

Now, the company has started larger-scale production and has orders for more than 1,000 bottles.

He says the general public has also been calling to get some, but he's letting them know that front-line workers, including cashiers and truckers, are priority.

"Today we got a call from a trucking company. They want all their trucks supplied across Canada. So we're going to be sending it to their central warehouse in Toronto," said Murphy. "We wanted to make sure that everyone was supplied with it."

They're making it using a recipe they found online and are testing as well as making adjustments as needed.

The company hired a new staff member on Monday to help out due to the influx of orders.

'It's been huge and it's been positive'

The distillery is only charging for the cost of making the product, and Murphy says he isn't charging for his time, just what it costs to for materials and to pay his staff.

"There's been a lot of response on Facebook. We've received a lot of emails within a short amount of time so we've just been trying to answer those emails, and it's been huge and it's been positive," he said.

He says he's hoping to keep producing it as long as the community needs it.

Other distilleries have taken up the same cause, including one in Beamsville, Ont.as well as Dixon's Distilled Spirtis in Guelph.