MEMPHIS, Tennessee —
Memphis’ Old Dominick Distillery and Shelby County are hoping to help thousands of families who are in desperate need of hand sanitizer. The two have partnered to produce 10,000 bottles of hand sanitizer for distribution in the midst of COVID-19 pandemic. The goal is to eventually get thousands of hand sanitizers into lower income communities and to the homeless.
Wednesday, Old Dominick master distiller sampled small test batches of it to make sure it’s fully ready for production.
“Our goal for the county is to be able to do roughly 10,000 small bottles. We’re going to be working with 4-ounce bottles and 6-ounce bottles,” said Alex Castle, Master Distiller and Senior VP of Old Dominick.
The distillery prepares to produce thousands of bottles of hand sanitizer for families who need it.
“The World Health Organization put together two different, very easy to follow formulas or recipes. One of them uses ethanol which is exactly what we have,” Castle said.
Distilleries across the country have done this and Old Dominick is well on its way. Shelby County will help finance raw material costs.
“When I talked to our attorneys to see if we could find some money in our budget to take care of this, I wanted to make sure that a portion went to those who needed it most which were compromised communities,” said Shelby County Commissioner Tami Sawyer.
RELATED: Shelby County Health Department provides new details as local coronavirus cases continues to grow
The hand sanitizer will be 96% alcohol by volume. Once the products are produced, Sawyer will organize distribution.
“We are giving 40% to Shelby County schools distribution sites to make sure our students and kids are getting them, 20% will go to the homeless population, “ Sawyer said.
“We are also trying to acquire more raw material to hopefully do another round of hand sanitizer probably in larger containers,” Castle said.
Full production is expected to begin March 30.