The Smugglers' Notch Distillery is taking advantage of their business resources by making their own line of hand sanitizer.

Distillery co-owner Jeremy Elliott says they found themselves in the perfect position to help out the community in this time of mass shortages.

"We realized that a lot of people were going out, without sort of the essential needs," he said.

Elliott says they found themselves in the perfect position to help out the community in this time of mass shortages.

"We have a really unique opportunity here because hand sanitizer is made out of ethanol and we produce ethanol. We can do something which I think will make a difference for the community," he said.

Already having one of the key ingredients, and having access to the other ingredients needed to make the sanitizer, spurred the distillery to take action.

They are still waiting for one or two line items but they plan to have the product ready for sale by Thursday of Friday.

"This is just a very interesting point in time where we can do something which I think will make a difference for the community," Elliott said.

And many in the surrounding community agree.

"I actually just went to Hannafords up in Morrisville and there was really very many empty shelves. Honestly, I think it's a good way to help the community and I think it's necessary at this point because there's not much of anything else," said Ryley Cota of Belvidere.

"It's great they feel a commitment to do something that is obviously a great need right now. I think a lot of people, if they couldn't find little sanitizers, they may not get out and do things," said Bill Moore of Johnson.

The distillery expects to produce a starting line of 20,000 ounces of extra-strength sanitizer which will be sold in four-ounce bottles at the retail price of $6.99. Elliott says their product will be stronger than normal name-brand sanitizers and equivalent to surgical-grade hand sanitizers.

Green Mountain Distillers in Morrisville also spent the last few days distilling some high proof alcohol to make batches of hand sanitizer. They were making it available over the weekend for free for those with containers.