When the COVID-19 coronavirus led to part of Guelph life shutting down, Dixon’s Distilled Spirits decided to make something a bit stronger.

But the new offering from Dixon’s isn’t to make cocktails — it’s to help save lives.

The distiller on Elmira Road is now making a 70 per cent alcohol solution — about 600 litres has been produced so far — and is offering it to front-line health care workers.

“We’ve been talking about how we can do our part,” Chevy Patterson, one of the distillery’s co-owners, told the Mercury Tribune.

“Obviously we are at an advantage that we can produce a pretty good sanitizer here.”

Patterson said the distillery recently talked with a surgeon at Guelph General Hospital, who said that while the hospital itself is, for the most part, good when it comes to sanitation needs, it is a different story for doctor’s offices and other front-line workers.

According to Health Canada, alcohol-based hand sanitizers need to contain at least 60 per cent alcohol to be effective. At 70 per cent, Dixon’s offerings more than do the trick.

With hand sanitizer running scarce, Dixon’s is not the only distillery that has taken up making the much desired substance. Dillon’s Small Batch Distillers in Beamsville recently made 1,000 bottles of high-proof disinfectant and 2,000 bottles of sanitizer, also making it available to health care workers.

Distilleries in Toronto, the United States and Europe have also begun doing the same thing amid the ongoing pandemic.

For the time being, Patterson says the distillery will be offering the sanitizer to medical personnel and front-line workers like firefighters, in bulk. He said he has also ordered 120-millilitre bottles that will be available to the public.