For Addie and Tim Ford, the work they are doing at their local Rockford GrantView Distillery during the current public health crisis has been familiar, but the end product is new territory for them. They have suspended their production of their whiskey, vodka, and rum spirits that they are known for, and together with the help and donations of many from the local beer and spirits world, they have begun producing hand sanitizer to donate to first responders in the Rockford area and beyond.

Currently, with different runs in various stages at the facility, “we’ve thought outside the box and worked with the community, some of them have brought in sugar so we skip the first two steps and go right to converting sugar to alcohol.  And also, we’ve got people in the distributor area that have leftover, expired beer which still contains alcohol, so we’re running that through our still, extracting alcohol from old beer to make hand sanitizer”, explains Tim, GrantView’s Distiller.

“Everybody has really kind of done their part, and it actually makes us able to do what we’re doing,” noted Addie. “So right now in the distillery we have some mash that was cooked this morning, we have some mash that is fermenting, both of those are whiskey recipes we’ve tweaked a little bit and added some sugar to get a higher alcohol content off of those because we’re not doing anything right now because we want it to taste good…we want the alcohol.”

Hear more from Addy and Tim about this amazingly unique, community process below, and find their signature spirits likely in a store right in your own backyard before your next FaceTime happy hour with friends.