BRANCH, La. (KLFY) — A local distillery in Acadia Parish is making bottles of hand sanitizer during the coronavirus pandemic.
Michael Fruge, Founder of J.T. Meleck Distillers, said, “We quickly made 1,000 gallons of it, and that was gone overnight, and we sort of switched to almost 100% of production to making hand sanitizer for the short term.”
J.T. Meleck Distillers is located off Highway 35 in Branch. They are known for their American rice vodka… growing and harvesting their own rice.
When the coronavirus pandemic started, Fruge said he received requests to make hand sanitizer at his distiller.
”When all this started happening, the FDA sort of did a temporary emergency order where they allowed all craft distillers to follow this same process, and we’re following their recipe,” explained Fruge.
That recipe for their hand sanitizer includes ethanol, water, glycerin, and hydrogen peroxide… approved by the FDA.
Fruge added, “The process for making our vodka or making hand sanitizer is very similar. We’re using a grain alcohol called ethanol. We ferment the grain. We convert it to an alcohol, and then we distill it in the still. The recipe that we use to make the actual ethanol itself is not the same as our beverage ethanol.”
Fruge said J.T. Meleck Distillers has produced almost 20,000 gallons of hand sanitizer.
J.T. Meleck Distillers has their hand sanitizer available at most local grocery stores.
