Lexington Brewing and Distilling Co. using alcohol supply to make free hand sanitizer

At Town Branch in Lexington, there is still bourbon to be made despite a public health crisis.

"On the most part, production still hasn't missed anything, we are still brewing, we are still distilling periodically we still bottle that hasn't stopped," said Mark Coffman, Master Distiller.

Kentucky's signature industry is now stepping up to start producing something new.

Master Distiller at Town Branch Distillery, Mark Coffman has a different brew going and this one isn't for drinking.

"We have some raw materials that can be made into hand sanitizer, so that's what we put together is 100 milliliter flasks," said Coffman.

Using a little different chemistry and plenty of something they have on hand, alcohol the Master Distiller came up with a new recipe.

"It's been denatured so it’s not safe to drink and we surely don't want anyone to try that, its' also got hydrogen peroxide and some glycerol, a little thickening agent," said Coffman.

Lexington Brewing and Distilling produced its first batch Thursday, using plain old vats, but production is about to ramp up.

"We've made about 20 liters so far, our next batch is going up to 200 liters and as we get our raw materials in we will scale that up some," said Coffman.

The first batch of 200 bottles made went out Friday afternoon in mini bottles headed for city hall in downtown Lexington and will be given out to other organizations.

The hand sanitizer is just one way this distillery can do its part to help its neighbors.

"We are part of Lexington, we really like the community aspect so anything we can do to help support the community is just a benefit for us," said Coffman.

Lexington Brewing and Distilling is providing the hand sanitizer to different organizations around town.

a href="javascript:location.href='mailto:'+String.fromCharCode(109,97,105,108,116,111,58,75,101,110,116,117,99,107,121,65,108,101,64,97,108,108,116,101,99,104,46,99,111,109)+'?'">Organizations in need of hand sanitizer can email KentuckyAle@alltech.com to submit their request.

The hand sanitizer cannot be sold.