ELIZABETHTOWN — A product created in the kitchen of a restaurant has seen impacts all over the country thanks to the innovation and teamwork at Cape Fear Distillery.
“So when the pandemic hit we had to close our restaurant,” Alex Munroe said. “That was about two and half months ago. I had to lay off about 30 people.
“I got a notice from the Tax and Trade Bureau that distilleries, because of the pandemic, that I can now make hand sanitizer.”
Munroe received that notice in the mail, because he is a North Carolina federally permitted distillery.
“Then the town decided to limit overnight, or transient visitors to the town, so then I had to shut my cottages down also,” he said. “It was kind of like a ghost town out here.”
Cape Fear Vineyard & Winery, nestled next to the industrial park on the bypass of Elizabethtown, is a what employees call a hidden gem and a fabulous place to work.
“This has been gratifying,” said Brenda Hollingsworth, an employee who has been working on the sanitizer. “This is a little town doing big things. Our name is out there. Cape Fear Winery has done a huge undertaking.
“Just knowing that we are a part of it, to help — it’s been an undertaking, though. But it makes you proud.”
They ran into a a few hiccups, with all the spray bottles being taken up, so they decided to put it in their gin bottles.
“I said we might as well trademark it, kind of goofing around, and we will call it distillery sanitizer, ‘Distillisan’,” Munroe said. “It’s been challenging just trying to get everything out on time, knowing that it’s a need. Just meeting those deadlines and getting it out the door. We don’t want anyone to have a shortage.”
That is exactly what happened to Munroe, who went through the alcohol reserves he had on hand, and almost thought he was going to have to sacrifice the aged rum.
“That was a gut check,” he said. “I had to decide if I would sacrifice it, even with it being a few years old.”
Munroe didn’t have to because his still that he had ordered showed up just in time.
“I was prepared to do it though.”
Hollingsworth said that they have had a great team that pulled together, and that they did what they had to do.
“They all felt the same way, the team, that we had to get it done on time,” she said. “It’s the team effort. It’s a lot of heavy work, and we had our guys do most of the work, and then we had a couple of girls step up and do the line.”
The line was filling gallon jugs, and she said if someone got tired, someone else stepped in. It was a long day, with a huge order to fill.
“We just never stopped,” Hollingsworth said. “We had our lunch and were right back at it. It’s been a wonderful team effort. I am really, really proud of everybody. It hasn’t been easy, but we did it.”
Her son, Brady Hollingsworth, is a 17-year-old student at East Bladen. He started working when the pandemic came to help with the project.
“I have loved doing this,” he said.
His mom called asking for help, and he was quick to jump on the chance.
“I mean I need some money every once in a while, and then we started making a lot more of this,” Brady said. “Whenever we got the orders done, we would have to label the pallets.”
He said that one of the motivators for him was seeing how the coronavirus has spread all over the country, and how the sanitizer has been going everywhere.
“It’s a relief because you know they probably can’t find hand sanitizer,” Brady said.
Munroe said that the sanitizer has been going to places like inner city Detroit, where people can’t honestly afford to buy it.
Brady said with all the work, he’s still kept up with his school work, and yet this has caused him to push harder, work harder.
“It’s a lot of teamwork,” Brenda said. “We are all pulling together.”
Brenda Hollingsworth works with Alex Munroe to fill bottles of hand sanitizer in the Cape Fear Distillery at the Cape Fear Vineyard & Winery.