We never thought we’d see the day that hand sanitiser would be in more demand from a gin distillery than the gin itself, but here we are! The last few months have been a period of adaptation for our business, as it has been for many. We saw our gin sales significantly drop overnight at the beginning of lockdown as the hospitality industry had to be put on pause for the foreseeable future. What started as an extremely daunting time for us here at Harrogate Tipple, has turned into a busy journey that has allowed us to add a new string to our bow! 

As you will know, the Coronavirus led to a huge shortage of hand sanitiser worldwide, and it was heartbreaking to learn that many of our local hospitals, doctors surgeries and businesses were struggling to get their hands on it, especially when a lot of their services relied on having access to it. We came across a gin distillery in Scotland who had started to produce hand sanitiser, and it naturally made us curious as to whether we could do the same! Afterall, we had no shortage of the alcohol needed to make it…

After a lot of research and brainstorming with our close team, we found that we could get our hands on the additional items we needed in order to produce hand sanitiser. We sourced the ingredients, managed to get hold of some bottles and were able to get labels printed really quickly. Since then, we’ve been run off our feet with the production of 80% alcohol hand rub in our distillery! The hand rub we produce is in line with the World Health Organisation’s formula, and in addition to selling individual 500ml bottles on our website, we’ve also supplied bottles to the likes of Harrogate Borough Council (as well as others across the country) and Royal Mail, among many many other care businesses. As we are able to make such a strong 80% volume hand rub, the sanitiser we produce is able to kill off the virus. And despite its strength, our sanitiser isn’t as drying as many others.

It has been a journey to say the least, with our local MP, Andrew Jones, helping us to waive the duty due on producing 80% alcohol based sanitiser, which allowed us to produce and sell as much as we are now able to. We’re still continuing with the production of our gin and it’s great to see many of our customers purchasing a bottle of gin with their bottle of sanitiser, and vice versa. All of the essentials!
You can purchase a 500ml of our liquid hand rub online via our website, or as part of our drive in. You can also read more about the story behind our production of hand sanitiser via this ITV news article!