The Impacts of COVID-19 and What We're Doing to Help

Dear friends,

These last weeks have brought some of the most challenging moments in our history. At Hood River Distillers, we pride ourselves on being an active member of both the distilling and larger Oregon communities. Because of this, we wanted to provide an update to our friends and neighbors on how we are responding to the COVID-19 virus and all of the changes it has brought to our lives and our work.

First, we’d like to reassure everyone that Hood River Distillers has already taken many precautionary measures to ensure the safety and health of our employees and their families, customers, suppliers, and partners. As new directives are announced, we will continue to respond and act with urgency to ensure that we are protecting our employees while still creating the high quality spirits you know and love. Those employees that can, are working remotely. We are allowing only critical visitors into our facility and have reduced our production output in order to comply with social-distancing guidelines.

This also means we’ve had to close our tasting rooms to the public in Hood River and Seattle. We are sad not to be able to host you in those spaces for the time being, but we look forward to welcoming you back as soon as we are able.

In addition, we made our first batch of hand sanitizer two weeks ago at our Clear Creek Distillery and subsequently bottled at our plant, both located in Hood River, OR. To date, we have produced 5,000 gallons, which equates to over 50,000 375-ml bottles of high-quality 80% alcohol-based hand sanitizer.

Over the next several weeks, we will be producing an additional 7,000 gallons and we are proud to be working with the Oregon Health Authority to distribute this hand sanitizer throughout Oregon to those on the front lines of the healthcare and food service industries. As long as there is a need and access to materials, we will continue to produce this critical product to help protect our communities from the spread of COVID-19.

Lastly, please support our good friends in the hard-hit restaurant industry. We encourage you to help them stay in business, if you are able and comfortable. You can support by ordering takeout food, purchasing gift cards, and contributing to their staff relief go-fund-me efforts.

We are grateful for your support during this time and we will continue to share updates with you as we navigate these uncharted waters. Please stay home and stay safe, and we hope our brands continue to provide you with a moment of joy or relaxation at the end of these long days.

With love,

The Hood River Distillers Family