With more and more people venturing back out into the community, how are you keeping your hands germ free? 🤚 Earlier this year, we began seeing lessons about washing our hands, but what if soap and water just aren't available?

Hand sanitizer has been one of the leading hot products since COVID-19 began, and local breweries + distilleries are lending a hand to help meet the demand to keep everyone healthy + happy. Palmetto Brewing Co. + High Wire Distilling Company teamed up to create and donate sanitizer from the brewery’s excess beer that was not selling due to stay at home orders.

Palmetto Brewing + High Wire Distilling’s hand sanitizer | Photo provided

Palmetto ramped up beer production earlier this year in anticipation of its normal spring + summer rush – then the pandemic hit. The brewery was unable to sell all of the beer because of the effects COVID-19 had on food + bev industry sales, and decided to turn it into something the community could benefit from.

The brewery donated 100+ barrels of beer to its neighbor, High Wire Distilling, which then used its equipment to evaporate, cool + collect the alcohol from the beer, and mixed it with glycerin + hydrogen peroxide to make a sanitizer solution.

High Wire Distilling Co.’s creation of hand sanitizer | Photo provided

Founder + co-owner of High Wire Distilling Co., Scott Blackwell, stated, “Palmetto Brewing’s gesture to give us their beer to make sanitizer was so generous we decided to keep that donation spirit alive and provide all the sanitizer it produced to our local Charleston community. We can’t think of a better way to show our community spirit than to partner with our new next door neighbors at Palmetto.”

So far, the sanitizer has already been distributed to several fire houses around Charleston, and a 55-gallon drum was delivered to CARTA to help stop the spread of germs on public buses with the help of the transportation system’s federal CARES Act funding.

Palmetto + High Wire are not the only businesses to be adopting this new business model – breweries and distilleries all over the U.S. – including Firefly Distillery – are turning alcohol into hand sanitizer, following the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax Trade Bureau guidelines + using the World Health Organization’s Formula One.

If you need to get your hands on some hand disinfectant we know where you can find some. High Wire is selling the hand sanitizer in gallon jugs for $42 in the tasting room located at 311 Huger St, and Firefly Distillery (4201 Spruill Ave., North Charleston) is selling half-gallon bottles for $25.

Stay healthy and keep your hands clean, Charleston.