Who Has All The Alcohol?!

[brentondouglas]

For distillers who want to immediately package hand sanitizer it seems the biggest bottleneck is alcohol supply.  Our industry understands that the large manufacturers of alcohol (i.e. ADM, Poet, Valero, MGP, etc.) are producing on a daily basis more ethanol than we can likely imagine.  Where is it all going?  Why can't we get it to our community of distillers who have bottling lines ready to package hand sanitizer at this very moment?  Who is buying all the alcohol?  Why are they seemingly not turning it into hand sanitizer quickly enough?

 

[Hudson bay distillers]

Seems to be lots around but its denatured with gasoline  

[SlickFloss]

There is still a large amount of alcohol on the commodity market. The large producers are all still fulfilling orders for preexisting customers, I think the main problem is if you didn't already have an account open you're not going to be able to open one. Also, large suppliers are still trying to keep people right for regular production as well as excess orders for NGS. By not taking new customers they can manage what they have and meet commitments. 

 

I am in deep with a few of the suppliers you have listed. A lot of the product you think you should have access is going to purell. So its going where it needs to go. Its better too fill the channel through them than through us.

 

just my .02

[brentondouglas]

SlickFloss - thanks very much for the input.

Many people seem to think that Purell and other big manufacturers are not getting the job done fast enough.  For instance, local hospitals, police, etc.  have been reaching out to me directly looking for hand sani claiming they cannot get enough Purell right now.

All I'm saying, is many of us have bottling lines that are immediately ready to go.  Big alcohol might want to ask itself "How can we do better?"

[Silk City Distillers]

Sanitizer manufacturing is sucking down ethanol now that isopropyl is hard to get.

This has forced cosmetics and pharmaceutical makers to move upmarket and buy a lot of what was in the beverage market, even though some of it was significantly more expensive.

[SlickFloss]

We have all said things that are likely true. The fact remains, if you had an account before you can likely still purchase alcohol for your normal production. There's still a lot of alcohol on the market. Im getting calls daily to wheel and deal tankers worths of both finished sanitizer product and commodity alcohol. Just because the pricing and access people are usually used to isn't available doesn't mean the product isn't. If we were all willing it pay 2200 a cube for grade 9 we would all be swimming in it.

 

[daveflintstone]

What's grade 9?

[SlickFloss]

 

1 hour ago, daveflintstone said:

What's grade 9?

Grade 9 is an informal short hand I am using for Grade 9 NGS or GR9 NGS which is a reference name of a particular type of ngs on the commodity market. It is potable NGS ethanol 191.8 proof. Another popular term thrown around in commodity purchasing is GR12 NGS or Grade 12 NGS which is potable ethanol at 192.

 

If you own a facility I would highly recommend looking into leveraging your relationships and permits to buy and sell alcohol (and hopefully bottle it) for people who will pay you a high margin for it. It covers all of my payroll. My payroll is high.