Shropshire Star

Shropshire gin distillery producing hand sanitiser amid coronavirus crisis

A gin distillery in Shropshire has been pressed into use making hand sanitiser.

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Alison Parr and Chris Toller of Stonehouse Brewery and Henstone Distillery, who are making hand sanitiser for front-line workers

Stonehouse Brewery and Henstone Distillery had to jump through several legal hoops to get permission to create the alcohol-based sanitiser in the equipment installed last year to produce its now popular gin.

Production is underway and the brewery near Oswestry already has its first batch ready to deliver to key workers.

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Alison Parr from Stonehouse said the distillery was perfect for creating hand sanitiser as the main ingredient was alcohol.

"Alcohol over 60 abv per kills bugs. Gin is about 40 abv but we are having to make the sanitiser at 70 which is what hospitals like," she said.

"When we first mooted the idea of using our distillery we had interest from two local hospitals.

"They are still working through the legalities of using us rather than their usual contracts however if they are unable to use us, we have a list of key worker groups as long as your arm that are interested."

She said while Henstone gin production had been temporarily halted there will still stocks available.

"We are working very much as a skeleton staff delivering our beer and other products to supermarkets and to individual customers as well as operating a drive through collection here at the brewery," she added.

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