“By the end of July, we had produced with Weldworks over 5,000 gallons of sanitizer and donated all of it."
“My family and I were down in Arizona in March when COVID started to hit the country. We got a couple of messages through Facebook from customers asking if there's any chance we could start making sanitizer, as there was already becoming a shortage. This was right around March 15.
When we got back from Arizona, we briefly talked with the team and made the decision to switch over to producing sanitizer. At the same time, we could produce ethanol, which is the main ingredient of the emergency declaration approved FDA sanitizer. Some local farmers here donated corn, including one family that donated a semi load of corn. That’s about 50,000 pounds of corn. That’s a lot of corn. Allwayz Manufacturing here in Pine Bluffs donated all the labels for the bottles.
We needed glycerin and hydrogen peroxide to make the final solution. They were starting to become scarce, though, so we partnered up with WeldWerks Brewing Co. out of Greeley, Colorado. We produced the ethanol and WeldWerks helped supply the glycerin, peroxide, bottles or jugs, and some labor.
WeldWerks opened a foundation and paid for all of the ingredients that weren’t donated. Pepsi Worland Beverage, which is the Pepsi distributor here in the state, donated all the one liter bottles. We at the distillery donated our labor and natural gas for firing up the stills.
A lot of volunteers helped bottle sanitizer, including my daughters, the police department here in Pine, the Cheyenne Fire Department, the Air National Guard and the Cheyenne Regional Medical Center. It really was a community thing. We would do it on, you know, a Monday or a Friday and we would barbecue burgers or whatever and just make a day of it and it was kind of cool.
By the end of July, we had produced with Weldwerks over 5,000 gallons of sanitizer and donated all of it. We donated a lot to first responders and to any business or organization that needed it. We were sure to donate to the forgotten ones as well. We donated to homeless shelters, battered women's resource centers, senior care facilities, Boys and Girls Clubs of Wyoming, and the prisons here in Wyoming. So, it really ran the whole gamut. If they needed it, we got it in their hands. Our guys and trucks delivered it all across the state.
So, yep, it was a crazy three months. My daughters got a kick out of it. They told me they’re ready to do it again."
-- Chad, Pine Bluffs Distilling (October 2020).
