The sounds of a shaking cocktail being made means more money being brought into an industry still fighting its way out of the pandemic.”Without those lifelines, a lot of us would not be in business today,” said Chris Flowers, owner of the Reading Distillery Guild. “We are still trying to dig out of that time.”

Pennsylvania Distillers Guild will have produced some 2.4 million 4-ounce bottles of hand sanitizer, predicts Rob Cassell. And if that’s not impressive enough, consider all the partnerships he’s forged and red tape he’s cut through since March. “To me, I feel like what you’re seeing happen between public-private partnerships and businesses converting to creative solutions is like what our grandparents talked about happening during World War II,” said Cassell, guild president and master distiller at North Philadelphia’s New Liberty Distillery.

After hand sanitizer evaporated from store shelves and the internet in early March, distilleries all over the country started brewing makeshift substitutes with various formulas. On March 18, the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB) issued a letter to the nation’s distilleries, authorizing them to make it according to World Health Organization’s guidelines, which call for a mix of ethanol, glycerol, and hydrogen peroxide.

Today, the Pennsylvania House Liquor Control Committee passed HB 1512, a bill to repeal the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board’s (PLCB) flexible pricing program. Last week, Distilled Spirits Council of the United States (DISCUS) Chief Economist David Ozgo and President and CEO of the American Distilled Spirits Association Matt Dogali testified before the committee to highlight the harmful impacts this program is having on consumers in Pennsylvania.