A week after teaming up with Perfect Plain Brewing Co. and other businesses to bottle and distribute hand sanitizer, Rollins Distillery in Gulf Breeze is undertaking its very own hand sanitizer initiative for first responders and citizens in need during the coronavirus pandemic.
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Patrick Rollins, who owns the distillery at 5680 Gulf Breeze Parkway along with his father, Paul, said Saturday that he takes great pride in giving back to a community that has given so much to his business.
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"We are giving out bottles to the community, technically for free," Rollins said. "However, donations are greatly appreciated with the idea that we as a distillery are incurring a significant cost in order to provide hand sanitizer for the community. We care very deeply about the community because, without the community, we as a business would be absolutely nothing."
Beginning Monday in front of the distillery building, two-ounce bottles of Rollins' hand sanitizer will be available for public pickup. The distillery made upwards of 80 gallons of 80% alcohol-by-volume hand sanitizer, two-thirds of which will be publicly distributed.
The other 1,000 two-ounce bottles, all marked with custom Rollins Distillery labels, will go to first responders.
"Nursing homes, Arc Gateway is going to be receiving some bottles," Rollins said. "The fire departments, Gulf Breeze Police Department, Pensacola Police Department will all receive some. I'm trying to get in with the (Escambia County) Sheriff's Office to see how much they need."
Rollins said the limit is two bottles per customer, though he'll rely on the honor system in giving out a maximum of four bottles per household.
"If a person comes in and says, 'Hey I got three other people at my house so I'd like four bottles,' then it's 'Yeah, OK man, here's four bottles,'" Rollins said.
The bottles will be available between 10 a.m. and 5 p.m. every day this week. There will likely be a capped number of bottles given out each day, Rollins said, so his current supply stretches the entire week.
The distillery has already ordered more ingredients and packaging with an eye on starting a second batch Friday.
"We as a distillery are the manufacturers of distilled spirits, so to begin with, only a certain population can imbibe in the products we produce," Rollins said. "So this is our opportunity to give to the community that we love and that supports us, in a way that everybody can benefit from. A child can benefit, an elderly person can benefit, a mom, a dad, someone that doesn't drink on principle or otherwise can benefit from this.
"This is a way that we as a distillery can give to a community in need in this time of crisis," he added. "That is an incredibly rewarding and fulfilling feeling."
Another 200 four-ounce bottles of Rollins Distillery hand sanitizer will go to Perfect Plain, which will then give half of those bottles to Baptist Hospital and likely give the remaining 100 to the public in return for a suggested donation like the brewery did last week.
Jake Newby can be reached at jnewby@pnj.com or 850-435-8538.
This article originally appeared on Santa Rosa Press Gazette: Rollins Distillery giving homemade hand sanitizer to public