HOLLY HILL, Fla. — During the COVID-19 pandemic five years ago, the owners of Copper Bottom Distillery in Holly Hill saw a desperate public need for more hand sanitizer and decided to do something to help.

What You Need To Know

  •  During the COVID-19 pandemic, Copper Bottom Distillery in Holly Hill stopped producing spirits and instead made hand sanitizer that was given to the public free of charge

  • Co-founder Jeremy Craig said he was glad to be able to help the public, but because some of the liquor his distillery produces has to age for multiple years, the stop in production is still impacting how much stock his business has to sell

  • Over the course of about eight months in 2020, Craig said the distillery produced about 5,000 gallons of hand sanitizer

After seeing empty shelves around town, co-founder Jeremy Craig says the decision was made to stop making spirits and instead used the distillery's alcohol to make hand sanitizer.

“It is kind of a little nostalgic looking back at it,” he said. “It’s one of those things that I am really glad we were able to do. I hope we never have to do it again.”

For about eight months, Copper Bottom Distillery pressed pause on distilling rum and vodka, and instead used instructions from the World Health Organization to make around 5,000 gallons of hand sanitizer that was handed out to the public free of charge.

“We are doing our best to produce as much as we possibly can," Craig told Spectrum News at the time. "I know we could never produce it fast enough because the demand is just way too high."

Lines of people wrapped around their building on a daily basis and Craig said they even sent some of their supply to law enforcement and the Secret Service.

While he was happy to help, five years later, Craig said they are still are feeling the impacts that decision has had on their current production. Since they usually spend five years barrel aging some of their spirits, he said now they simply don’t have as much finished product to sell.

The spirits "definitely could have been on the market now, but unfortunately, we just don't have them,” Craig said.

At the same time that their supply took a hit, he said the pandemic also wiped out about 25% of the distillery's revenue stream by causing events to be canceled.

“Big part of our business that just kind of went away overnight,” Craig said.

Because "there’s really an art to making a spirit that people actually enjoy and want to drink,” Craig said he has to spend a lot of time focused on the future.

“You have to kind of project what the next five years is going to look like,” he said. “And that's not always easy when, you know, the world happens.”

Despite the challenges they faced and their distribution still not getting back to where it was, Craig and his family managed to keep their small business afloat. But he said it was hard to see so many of their friends have to close their doors.

While things are still not the same, and the landscape of the business community looks different now, Craig said he is still proud that his distillery was able to help the public in a time of need — help that he says the community is now giving back to them.

“We still get quite a few people that come in that say, 'Hey, I remember you guys from making hand sanitizer, we really appreciate that,'” Craig said.

“And that's, you know, years later," he added. "We finally — or we're still seeing, you know, residual goodwill from making a hand sanitizer all those years ago.”