Distilleries Raced to Make Hand Sanitizer for the Pandemic. No Longer.

As the coronavirus pandemic shuttered bars and restaurants in March, Phil McDaniel’s craft distillery in St. Augustine, Fla., stopped producing bourbon. Then he realized there was one alcohol-based product he could make that people would still clamor for: hand sanitizer.

His St. Augustine Distillery soon churned out the first of what became 10,000 gallons of the disinfectant. With sanitizer in short supply nationwide, he quickly sold and donated most of the supplies to hospitals and emergency responders along Florida’s northeastern coast.

“In the beginning, it was just unbelievable, the sort of frenetic demand that was out there,” said Mr. McDaniel, 62. “It was so gratifying to us to be able to come in and help.”

But as virus cases have spiked again in Florida and other states, Mr. McDaniel said he had no plans to make more sanitizer. That’s because the early demand he experienced tailed off in June when large brands like Purell were able to pump out more product. The price for sanitizer, which had hovered at $50 a gallon, plunged to around $15 a gallon. Today, he still has about 1,000 gallons of it, spread between 250-gallon square totes of finished product and 50-gallon drums of ingredients, sitting in a warehouse.