Salmon Leap Consulting

I got a note today from David E. Block and Konrad V. Miller at UC Davis regarding the operational dangers of high-proof ethanol. I’m sure that this is all very familiar information to any distillers as well as winemakers making fortified wines. All the same, I’m going to post the note in it’s entirety just in case anyone in the wine industry that doesn’t have experience handling high-proof ethanol is now doing so. High-proof (e.g. 70%) ethanol can be an effective sanitizing agent against the coronavirus causing COVID-19.  Spraying of small winery surfaces or equipment for sanitization with this solution is not problematic, especially in a well-ventilated area.  However, pumping high proof ethanol (for the purpose of creating sanitizing solution or sanitizing large pieces of equipment) using a normal winery pump could be hugely dangerous (explosion hazard) and should be avoided.  While winery and distillery pumps are extremely similar, there are critical operational a...

TTB Allows Distilled Spirit Permittees to Produce Ethanol-based Hand Sanitizer without Further Permits through June 30, 2020 Last week I noted that several distilleries outside of the US were changing over to the production of hand sanitizer. I opined that it would be a good thing if US distilleries could follow suit. The somewhat byzantine regulations surrounding alcohol production in the US seemed to require a different permit than the beverage DSP (Distilled Spirits Plant) that must be held by all beverage alcohol producers. Since I wrote that column, the TTB has announced that it is exempting all beverage DSPs, as well as Alcohol Fuel Plants (AFPs), to produce hand sanitizer, and to supply ethanol for the use in manufacturing hand sanitizer, without having to acquire authorization from the TTB beforehand. There are several provisos that DSPs should keep in mind. Records regarding ethanol production should be kept as per usual. Hand sanitizers need to be produced according t...