Local distillery switches production to hand sanitizer

TRIMBLE, Tenn. — Trimble’s biggest business is Full Throttle Sloonshine Distillery.

When coronavirus threatened to shut their doors earlier this year, owner Michael Ballard went to plan B, restructuring to meet a dire need across the country.

“The federal government has opened up and allowed the distilleries to make hand sanitizer because it’s such a shortage of it, just like the masks. So we’re able to supply large orders. We’ve got semi-tractor trailer loads going out three or four times a day,” Ballard said.

It’s simple. The alcohol they would usually have in their drinks is now going towards hand sanitizer, with a formula provided by the U.S. government.

“Smaller businesses are buying the five gallon pails, the bigger businesses are buying 55 gallon drums and totes,” Ballard said.

Now the distillery is getting calls from all over West Tennessee from people wanting to buy their sanitizer.

“We flipped everything. We retooled up, and now we’re doing 100 percent hand sanitizer. Twenty thousand gallons a day,” Ballard said.

Dr. Paul Higgs is the master distiller at Full Throttle Sloonshine. He says he never imagined he’d be working on hand sanitizer, but it’s a challenge he is willing to take.

“We’re doing the appropriate tests to make sure we’re doing it correctly, so to have a guy like me doing this, you can be pretty comfortable that it’s the right stuff, and it’ll do the job you want it to do,” Higgs said.

Their first priority once they changed gears? Taking care of Trimble.

“We went out, knocked on everybody’s door, gave them a free bottle in Trimble. To all the residents,” Ballard said. “Whatever I can do to help keep people safe here, coming out of our Full Throttle Distillery, then we want to do it.”

The distillery says they’re producing so much product, they will be hiring soon to keep up with demand.