UPDATE: Kelowna distillery's hand sanitizer available for free starting Wednesday

(UPDATE: March 23 @ 10:15 am) - Okanagan Spirits Craft Distillery will soon make their "Flatten the Curve" hand sanitizer available to the public.

The distillery's first priority was supplying the alcohol-based sanitizer to emergency front-line medical workers, care homes, homeless shelters and other essential service sectors.

Once that phase is complete, which is expected to happen by Wednesday, the sanitizer will be offered to the public for free.

However, Okanagan Spirits is asking people who take advantage of the free sanitizer to "pay the kindness forward," and offered the following suggestions:

1. Please only take the volume of sanitizer that you require to keep yourself and your loved ones safe.

2. Please let anyone you know in the local area who is a front-line medical or essential service worker to reach out to us so that we can help them out first. Our staff are being true heroes and are doing their best to produce more every single day, but if you are able to self isolate and are not imminently at direct risk please allow us to service those that are first.

3. Please call ahead if possible to check on supply as daily volumes fluctuate.

4. Please be understanding that we are trying our best and a little patience might be necessary.

5. If you yourself are sick please do not come in personally but ask someone healthy to pick up some for you. If our family and staff get sick we will not be able to continue producing.

6. When picking up your sanitizer please be mindful that social distancing is a necessary requirement for all of us. Give everyone a little space, and please don’t congregate on mass if you have to wait a bit for the sanitizer. We will do our best to accommodate a safe environment for all at our end, but please help us out from your end too.

The distillery has also put out a call for unused bulk plastic bottles, preferably spray bottles, to help them keep up with the production demand.

If you have a connection that could assist Okanagan Spirits in that manor, reach out to them through Facebook.

(Original story: March 20 @ 7:30 am) - If you live in or around the Okanagan, there’s a good chance you’ve tried Okanagan Spirits Craft Distillery’s delicious gin, bourbon or vodka.

Their latest product, however, you should definitely not drink.

As the world tries its best to flatten the curve and slow down the spread of COVID-19, the Kelowna-based distillery is doing its part by turning its focus to producing hand sanitizer.

While some are mass-buying hand sanitizer from grocery stores, Tony Dyck and his team is creating it and donating it to institutions and groups working directly with the at-risk population.

“Our initial focus will be to try to help institutions such as care homes, shelters, community public health centers, and first responders (fire, police, ambulance), etc.” said a Facebook post from Okanagan Spirits.

“As soon as available, we will expand this initial release to an additional 1600 personal-format size sanitizers for our customers and local community members, free of charge.”

They may be free of charge, but the distillery is hoping that anyone who’s able to make a small donation will do so.

Every single dime of the proceeds will be donated to the Upper Room Mission in Vernon and the Kelowna Gospel Mission.

And as we mentioned earlier, you shouldn’t even think about drinking this latest product from Okanagan Spirits, and they made sure to include a little warning about that on Facebook as well.

“This sanitizer contains methyl alcohol and other elements that are distillation byproducts, and are extremely harmful if consumed but very effective for sanitation,” said the post.

To find out when the personal-format size sanitizers are available, follow Okanagan Spirits Craft Distillery on Facebook!