Here’s an early draft of what the cans of hand sanitizer, or ‘canitizer’ could look like. (Twitter/Annex Ale Project)

By Jeff D'Andrea

Canitizer

Distilling hand sanitizer, alcohol companies producing sanitizer during critical shortage

Mar 19, 2020 | 3:45 PM

Next only to toilet paper, hand sanitizer has been long sold out at grocery stores and pharmacies across Canada and the world.

Mark Freeland, who grew up in Prince Albert, is a part of the solution. Freeland, who is a managing partner with Two Rivers Distillery in Calgary, is teaming up with other distilleries and breweries in Calgary’s ‘Barley Belt’ to make hand sanitizer to fill a critical demand.

‘During the current circumstances, you go to any store, grocery store or pharmacy in Calgary and they’re all out,” Freeland said. “At this point, it’s just getting anything that has a high enough alcohol content to kill the virus.”

That’s where Freeland comes in. He makes the ethanol, which would usually go into a consumable alcoholic beverage. In fact, it’s actually very similar to when he makes his vodka.

“When I make vodka, it comes out of the still over 90 per cent, so basically I’m making vodka that you can’t drink,” Freeland said. “Then we’re going to make hand sanitizer out of it.”

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From there, Freeland and other distilleries send it over to the Annex Ale Project. They follow the recipe the World Health Organization and mix it with hydrogen peroxide and glycerol to create the hand sanitizer. Annex Ale Project will put the hand sanitizer in cans and plans on selling it as early as next week. It will be available in grocery stores in Calgary, while others will be donated to places in need.

As for Freeland’s old hometown of Prince Albert, where a lot of his childhood friends still are, there is already a little bit of the newly made spirits making its rounds.

“There are a few bottles floating around in P.A. right now, I think they’re probably empty by now, but we’ve had a couple of friends in town and they grabbed a couple of bottles,” Freeland said. “And I couriered a couple out. If anybody wants some ‘craft spirits,’ we can hook them up.”

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Jeff.dandrea@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @jeff_paNOW