The distillery is temporarily closed but that doesn’t mean work has stopped at Eight Oaks, Route 309, New Tripoli.

Almost from the beginning of the coronavirus health crisis, Eight Oaks Distillery made the commitment to halt production of spirits to focus on the production of hand sanitizer.

“One of the things we saw often in the news was people buying hand sanitizer at high prices and we thought it was just not appropriate at all,” explained Chad Butters founder and CEO of the company. “It was very obvious we were in the middle of a national emergency.”

That meant only one thing for the distillery: action.

“For us it was a little bit incremental as things became apparent that this was going to impact us,” Butters said. “But, we referred to our purpose and our mission which is at the heart of everything we do: to make our community a better place.”

This line of thinking led to the decision to change the product line.

“We said, ‘How can we apply what we do in this particular environment?’”

According to Butters, the question left to be answered was: “What was the right thing to do?”

This soul searching guided the company’s final decision.

“We all met and asked, ‘Is this what we should do?’ and we were always unanimous,” explained Butters. “There’s absolutely a learning curve, but we moved very, very quickly.”

Then it became all about the science.

“The active ingredient in hand sanitizer is denatured alcohol. We did a little bit of research consulting the World Health Organization and realized we could do this very easily.”

Production has been steaming ahead.

“[April 21] was the most efficient production day,” Butters said.

Eight Oaks produced 4,000 gallons of hand sanitizer on that day.

“We had to establish a supply chain, sourcing bottles and other ingredients that go into this,” Butters said. “There’s a lot of things moving. It was about getting the people on board and protecting the health of the crew.

“We are trying to keep our crew as safe as possible and focusing only on sanitizer products.

“For the safety of our crew, we’ve stopped sales at both the farmers markets and our distillery. We’ll update everyone when things return to normal.”

New information is critical in these COVID-19 times.

“The environment changes on an hourly basis,” Butters said. “There’s government discretion about compliance issues that keeps it evolving.”

Butters was encouraged by the response to Eight Oaks changing gears temporarily.

“It’s amazing,” he said. “Within a week, we were getting phone calls from the Department of Defense and Homeland Security.”

Hand sanitizer is a critical tool in fighting the virus.

“We’re working hard to get sanitizer out to first responders, clinics, government agencies and nonprofits in Lehigh, Northampton, Carbon, and Schuylkill counties,” Butters said. “Countless people have said thank you.”

Distribution is another facet that had to be addressed.

“I’m really glad we reached out to emergency management directors in the four neighboring counties with the request, ‘Can you pick the hand sanitizer up and get it out to literally six counties to every single municipality, many, many hospitals, elder care facilities, sheriffs’ department, state police and other groups?’” Butters said.

As in most cases, people make the difference.

“At this time, I really want to thank the countless people who have supported us,” Butters said. “Businesses have been instrumental,” said Butters, citing Nestle Water and Niagara which donated tens of thousands of bottles.

“An amazing [number] of businesses loaned us forklifts and trucks. That’s a huge help.

“There are great people in the world and a lot of them live right here.”

***

See related story on pages B1 and B2