Paducah Distillery Giving Away Free Sanitizer

As hand sanitizer becomes increasingly hard to find at area stores due to the COVID-19 pandemic, a Paducah distillery has begun making it and giving it away free of charge as a service to the community.

Silent Brigade Distillery Bar Manager Octavio Ramos says that as of Tuesday afternoon there are about 15 gallons of sanitizer left for the public to come get, but employees are preparing several hundred gallons more of the germ-killing agent that should be ready in a few days. 

"As of right now, all we have left are 15 gallons that we are portioning out to people. We only have a limited amount of bottles here in house," He said. "We have seven 50 gallon drums of pre-ethanol being made right now as we speak, but it's still gonna take a couple of days for them to be ready from start to finish."

Ramos says the process of making sanitizer starts out much the same as making moonshine.

"It's 50 pounds of pure, white grain corn that we then fill with about 50 gallons of water. And then we add our yeast, and we let it ferment for a minimum of ten days, to at most two and a half weeks. Then we run that mash through our still that we have in house." Ramos said. They then add various other ingredients to the mix, including aloe vera, coconut oil and other items to thicken it into a gel. 

Although Silent Brigade is currently not operating as a bar due to Governor Andy Beshear's recent order to close all bars and restaurants in the state, Ramos says customers can still come in and buy their moonshine to take home and enjoy. 

"We're still open operating as a liquor store selling our moonshine, but we are taking a little bit of a loss making our alcohol sanitizer as opposed to drinkable alcohol." He said. "We are accepting donations, we've got no problem with that. But at the end of the day we're just doing it for the people, not for profit or gain."

Anyone in need of sanitizer can visit the distillery at 426 Broadway Street to pick some up while supplies last.