'Good whiskey, good gin, good hand sanitiser' - Hamilton brewery steps up amid coronavirus pandemic

March 24, 2020

They're trying to be part of the solution in the fight against Covid-19.

A Hamilton brewery has become a shining example of community responsibility and goodwill - from a safe distance – by stepping up to make hand sanitiser to help ease the nationwide shortage.

The Good George Brewing, which started out as a church before being converted into a pub to serve their own beer, is taking their prized aged whiskey and turning it into the much-needed product.

"It’s like, 'Oh, yeah, actually, why don't we just do this?" chief brewer Brian Watson told Seven Sharp.

"We've got ethanol here, we have got the glycerine, we've got the hydrogen peroxide, we've got everything we need."

The Good George crew aren't stopping at whiskey, either - they're also raiding their stocks of gin and beer.

"Good whiskey, good gin - good hand sanitiser."

Good George chief brewer Jason Macklow said he "knew absolutely nothing" about hand sanitiser just days ago.

"We've probably broken a few rules somehow but bugger it, what the hell?" he said.

The brewery's biggest problem might be that they have created themselves a monster.

"It's a slow process. We're a little brewery with a little still," Mr Watson said.

The brewery is attempting to make around 120 bottles every six hours, with plans to give away at least the first thousand bottles to their staff, rest homes and the especially vulnerable, such as the immunocompromised.

"It's actually a really nice distraction to actually have something psoitive you can do against all the background of negativity and uncertainty, so it gives the team a focus," Mr Macklow said.

"It feels like we're actually doing something that is going to make a difference."

Mr Macklow's daughter also worked out how far one almost one litre bottle of sanitiser can last.

"She told me the logic of how to do it, so this by that and times that so roughly, it's about one gram per squirt, so 10 squirts in a day, it will last you five months."

The Good George brewery have spent millions of dollars on the operation, but they said they're "not just doing this for the camera".

"This is actually how we're going to be doing this for the next who knows how long," Mr Watson said.

"Our still is only so big, and we will run the sucker for as long as we can."

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