CJ Spirits: Craft distillery manufactures hand sanitizer for pandemic
McKean County | Allegheny National Forest and Surrounds Landscape of the Pennsylvania Wilds
By Jason Burt
In Kane, PA, along the Route 6 corridor in the heart of the Pennsylvania Wilds, CJ Spirits is a craft distillery, which in normal circumstances, offers tours and tastings, a bar and table area where food is served, and a retail area with gifts for sale. But since about the middle of March, circumstances have not been normal for anyone, and this distillery has thrived by adding hand sanitizer to their production line with some help from local businesses.
Before the current shutdown from the COVID-19 pandemic, owners Sam Cummings Jr. and Tom Jones started their distillery from scratch, crafting spirits using fresh, local ingredients, spring water and state-of-the-art distillery equipment in creating alcoholic products like vodka, gin, rum and whiskey.
Cummings said they sell out of a satellite store in Pittsburgh, and their products are sold in 10 state stores. He said they were looking to expand that when things got put on hold due to the pandemic.
Jones said when they were mandated to close their in-house dining, they were still able to sell bottles for takeout. Some of their products have sold out in between production.
“Our bottle business has picked up,” Cummings said. “So it’s been hard to keep enough in stock. We’re actually doing better than we normally do. All the state stores in the state have been closed. Our liquor sales have been very robust, but they have to come to (our business) now. I just wish that some of the business we’re getting now could continue to support us” after the pandemic.
In addition to the bottle sales, another opportunity for the business presented itself. Cummings said they are pretty active in an email chain for a distillers’ guild where they heard about the FDA allowing distilleries to make hand sanitizer.
“So we followed along that way and got right into it in the beginning,” he said. “But we had to register with the FDA … to basically be an over-the-counter drug producer, which was very complex actually. But once we figured that out, we actually helped a couple of other distilleries.”
Cummings explained the items needed to produce hand sanitizer included 190-proof alcohol, which they already had to make vodka, and items which they already had or could obtain like stainless steel tanks, glycerin and distilled water. But one item they didn’t have was hydrogen peroxide.
“But we were able to get that from the Winery at Wilcox,” he said. “We needed 3 percent, and they had 35 percent, which we could then take and cut down to make what we needed.”
Taking about a week and a half to make, Cummings said they had about 270 gallons of hand sanitizer, but then had a couple issues with their supply line. One was a problem getting bottles for the hand sanitizer, which was corrected by reaching out to another local business.
“We got in real early on a 10,000-bottle order,” Cummings said. “We have friends that work in Zippo that got us into their supply chain. You know the Ronson lighter fluid bottles? They got us the same bottle – not with lighter fluid – but the same bottle. When I submitted everything for the FDA, we had 4-ounce bottles and 5-ounce bottles – those were the ones we got through Ronson – and 750ml bottles, which is the size of our standard vodka bottle.”
Another supply problem was for labels.
“For our labels, we had found one company to provide them for us, and they told us it would be three to five weeks, and it’s been like eight,” Cummings said. “But we found another company, and they were able to get it to us in two days. So production is back in full-force, making the hand sanitizer.”
They found more local help when another business in Kane – The Ink Pad – was able to print the labels for them.
“It’s very local,” Cummings said. “It has been really, really nice.”
Because the labels for their liquor are so much bigger than the ones for the hand sanitizer, Cummings said they couldn’t use the machine they have to label the hand sanitizer bottles.
“One of the hardest parts is labeling,” he said. “They have to be labeled by hand so that’s 10,000 bottles, all by hand, so I’ve been calling in my kids and my girlfriend … we’ve been labeling non-stop on those. It’ll be nice (to get back to normal). The hand sanitizer is very label intensive. The labels are so small, but it’s not bad making it.”
With all the local help, CJ Spirits has been able to pay that forward a little by helping out local communities. Due to donations from the Kane Rotary and Cummings Funeral Home, their first 500 bottles were given away for free to first responders and healthcare workers in Kane.
“We did our first batch and gave it away to first responders in our community … to local hospitals, nursing homes, the police department and fire department,” Jones said. “And the response to that was overwhelming.”
Cummings said they gave away 300 bottles at their first gathering and another 200 after that with the donations offsetting the cost for the distillery. He also mentioned other groups – even one out of town in Ridgway – made donations and got bottles passed out in their communities.
The week following that first batch given away to first responders, bottles of hand sanitizer were made available for sale to the general public. Cummings said they’ve made some larger sales to businesses including a water company, a nursing home in Warren, and Casella.
“We actually turned down orders here and there, looking for 5,000 or 6,000 bottles, which we couldn’t do at the time,” Cummings said.
Cummings said it has been a balancing act between production of the hand sanitizer and their liquor. He mentioned one vodka production was put back a week and a half so the 190-proof alcohol for it could be used to make a batch of the hand sanitizer.
“It has been one of our most challenging times,” he said. “We’re trying to keep producing liquor” at the same time as the hand sanitizer.
And trying to figure out when to order about 8,000 bottles at a time for the hand sanitizer when the demand is there and while they are still allowed to make it has been another balancing act, Cummings said.
“That’s the tricky stuff,” he said. “It’s not that bad. We’re just not sure how long we’re going to make this. The FDA is allowing us to make this until the end of June, and we do have the supply line shored up. (While in between production of hand sanitizer), we can start making some of our other products, and we should be stocked back up on our other products by next month.”
Cummings said they’ve been a little busier than normal because of the hand sanitizer production along with bottle sales, but they knew not to take on too much.
“We actually could do takeout for our food, but we’ve been so busy with the other stuff, we’re not doing takeout food,” he said. “We’d rather have people support the other restaurants in town.”
Still, Cummings said they’re trying to keep as many of the locals satisfied with their products as they can.
“The townspeople have been real nice,” he said. “We’ve considered ourselves fortunate to provide some type of service during the epidemic, and especially one that’s good for our town and state and helps everybody out. It’s awesome; we’re very lucky that we’ve been able to maintain work … and at the same time it’s something everybody needs. I know a lot of distilleries are getting into it. It’s been challenging but good.”
“We’re fortunate we have another avenue to go with the whole hand sanitizer thing,” Jones added.
Learn more about CJ Spirits at http://cjspirits.com/.
*Photos used in this article were provided by CJ Spirits.
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