Feds backpedal on charging distilleries $14,000 fee for making hand sanitizer
MAGGIE VALLEY, NC (WLOS) — Distilleries were among the first to help fight the COVID-19 pandemic by making hand sanitizer. So, distillery owners were surprised to learn about a hefty fee they were facing from the federal government for that work. They’re now relieved to find out the fee has now been rescinded.
When the pandemic first hit, many distilleries across the country, including Elevated Mountain Distilling in Maggie Valley, started making hand sanitizer out of their alcohol supplies. As such, they had to register as a drug maker, prompting a $14,000 fee. The FDA now said that was a mistake.
“When I first heard it, I didn’t think it was real. I thought it was some kind of joke,” Elevated Mountain Dave Angel said.
He was quick to reconfigure his production of whiskey and spirits last March and answer the government’s call to make hand sanitizer, which was in short supply at the time.
“We have the skills, the ability, the knowledge of how to make it and it was never a mention of, ‘Oh, and you’ll have to pay $14,000 for helping us,’” Angel said. “We actually suspended our beverage production.”
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