LAKEWOOD, Ohio — "Everybody wants hand sanitizer, nobody can find it," said Ann Thomas, Co-Founder of Western Reserve Distillers.
So the folks at Western Reserve Distillers in Lakewood are making it themselves.
"If we're already distilling vodka, it already comes off at 192 proof, that's basically what we're using to make the hand sanitizer so we're just going to have some that we have for vodka and some that we have for hand sanitizer," said Thomas.
Thomas says the Lakewood distillery is following all of the proper federal protocols.
"The FDA has their guidelines that we need to follow, and the World Health Organization put together a formula for us to make hand sanitizer so within those guidelines, there's a formula to make it and so this recipe came from the World Health Organization," she said.
Thomas says the first batch will be out early next month and that it's already sold out. They started pre-orders 48 hours ago and already sold nearly 2,000 gallons.
All the customers who are pre-ordering at $25 a gallon, can rest assured that Ohio's only certified organic distillery is still sticking to its principals.
"There's one formula that you can follow you can add chemicals do the product that we're making to denature it, we chose not to go that route. If we had gone that route, we would not have to pay the federal tax," said Thomas.
Because through it all, their customers have stuck to them.
"It was just very important for us to be able to give something back to the people that have truly given us so much," she said.
