Michigan distilleries are now making hand sanitizer to help fight the coronavirus

While Big Three automakers consider switching gears to manufacturing hospital equipment to help coronavirus patients — a new Arsenal of Democracy, as it were — Michigan distilleries are doing their part to fight the virus.

Thanks to revised federal regulations from the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau, distilleries can now produce ethanol-based hand sanitizers without requiring authorization. Hand sanitizer has been hard to come by as panicked customers empty store stocks and douchebag opportunists hoard them and sell them at a markup.

So far, Michigan companies like Ann Arbor Distilling Co., Griffin Claw, and Bier Distillery have all starting offering bottles of hand sanitizer for free to their customers.

"We just saw the impact of COVID-19 and everyone running out of sanitizer. We operate a distillery, so we got creative and were able to make our own," Griffin Claw Marketing Director Christopher Lasher said in a statement. "It started as a way to sanitize our own taproom and brewery without stressing the public supply. We also offered bottles for all of our guests to use and it really caught on."

We'll drink to that.

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