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Raising the bar

Local distillery steps up to help with hand sanitizer shortage

-Messenger photo by Elijah Decious
In a time of crisis, Bancroft distillery owners and farmers Brian and Sara Winkleman are working overtime to manufacture a product desperately needed to fight the spread of COVID-19 infections caused by the coronavirus.

BANCROFT — A Kossuth County distillery is hoping its newest product will raise spirits for those in need during the spread of coronavirus, but it’s a little too strong to drink.

As the nation has found nary a bottle of hand sanitizer to be had at local retailers and those on the front lines of public and medical service say their supplies are strained as a pandemic starts to climb towards its peak, the owners of S & B Farms Distillery stepped up.

“Our state is in need, desperate need,” said owner Sara Winkleman, of a product that most took for granted before a national public health emergency. “This is our way that we could contribute and help out.”

A little over a week ago, the family-owned business switched gears after distilleries nationwide received an SOS plea from the federal government calling on distilleries to help with the national shortage.

On Wednesday, the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau, which oversees the industry, said it waived parts of a federal tax law to allow distilleries to transition to hand sanitizer production without prior authorization.

-Messenger photo by Elijah Decious
Brian and Sara Winkleman have turned their Bancroft distillery into a temporary hand sanitizer factory to help with strained supplies across Iowa during the coronavirus pandemic.

“As we watched the coronavirus creep into the U.S., the federal government acknowledged they were low on it,” Winkleman said.

Using a government-approved recipe, their hottest product packs a punch at about 190 proof — much higher than their usual whiskey and moonshine varieties, which range from 70 to 116 proof.

The finished product, which resembles water both in transparency and viscosity, is about 80% alcohol, well above the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s 60% recommendation for hand sanitizer. It’s a simple, but critically regulated mixture of ethanol, hydrogen peroxide, glycerin and distilled water.

The small business, which has been distilling for a few years and opened a store front in 2018, has been working with ethanol plants to fill the demand. The family, which also farms and raises livestock, uses corn from their own acreage for most of their products.

“This is wild, absolutely crazy,” Winkleman said of how their business has transformed to making one product exclusively, for the time being. “Turn and burn is what we did.”

-Messenger photo by Elijah Decious
S & B Farms Distillery’s latest product, a 195-proof hand sanitizer, is the only bottle that has come across their storefront’s bar in Kossuth County since it closed under orders of Gov. Kim Reynolds.

They hope the only burn from their product will be of the viruses and bacteria on hands as the product makes its way to organizations from Sioux City to Des Moines. Many of S & B’s orders have first focused on Kossuth County’s emergency management agency, Sheriff’s Office and police departments.

But even with challenges to their business, after Gov. Kim Reynolds ordered all bars to close until a date now extended to April 7, they’ve found room for generosity with donations to places like the Fort Dodge Police Department.

“In a time where obtaining supplies is extremely difficult, if not impossible, having businesses willing to donate those supplies is essential,” said Capt. Ryan Gruenberg, public information officer for FDPD. “The daily routine of many has been disrupted for a short time, and making use of that time to give back like those at S & B Farms Distillery did is reassuring that we will get through this if we all lend a helping hand to one another.”

More orders for local nursing homes, assisted living facilities, hospitals and large manufacturers continue to inundate S & B.

“We are currently utilizing our traditional supply and have discussed within the Emergency Operations Center the possibility of other viable options should that need arise,” said Kelli Bloomquist, public information officer for Webster County’s coalition of agencies responding to COVID-19 locally.

-Messenger photo by Elijah Decious
Hand sanitizer being made by distilleries across the country has the viscosity of water, different from the gel-like texture that most consumers are used to in other commercial products.

“A lot of big manufacturers are looking at us because nobody can get hand sanitizer,” Winkleman said. “You cannot order it, you cannot get it.”

Even for them, an order for a single bottle could take about two weeks, according to current estimates, as there are more moving parts outside the fermentation. With supplies getting harder to find, Winkleman said that the hardest part now is telling medical providers in desperate need that they will have to wait.

“Everything we can get our hands on is in high demand,” said Brian Winkleman, Sara’s husband and distillery co-owner.

The main component in the sanitizer takes three to four days to ferment, but orders for basic supplies, even down to the bottles they put the sanitizer in, are being delayed by days or weeks as ripples of the pandemic leave no business untouched.

The distillery has had to temporarily send home its part-time employees, just as its store front sales started to pick up.

“We were getting to where we were selling a fair amount,” Brian Winkleman said. “That part hurts.”

But the pivot has shown them the versatility of their capabilities to survive as a small business. For now, they say that their whiskey stock with the state’s Alcoholic Beverage Division is full, and they have enough whiskey on hand to last about three to four months at current demand while they continue with the hand sanitizer.

“We all have to be in this together,” Winkleman said. “It’s going to take an army to keep up with this (hand sanitizer) demand. This is our way to contribute.”

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