The two companies won the Best Performance – Social Entrepreneurship category at the Best Ottawa Business awards ceremony last week. The brewery and distillery received the award for their efforts to develop, then donate, hand sanitizer to more than 25 hospitals and not-for-profit organizations over the past six months.

Neither company had developed hand sanitizer prior to the COVID-19 outbreak earlier this year. Dunrobin supplied a still for Beau’s Vankleek Hill brewery, which allowed the sanitizer to be produced at the business immediately.

The sanitizer was produced in both personal and bulk four-litre quantities. Those sales supported the continued donation of the supplies to hospitals and not-for-profit groups in the region.

“The hand sanitizer produced by Beau’s and Dunrobin is of a very high quality, and the innovative thinking has allowed both Beau’s and Dunrobin to create a new revenue stream at a time when Eastern Ontario’s economy has been deeply affected by COVID,” Beau’s said in a statement. “Beau’s and Dunrobin are grateful for the support of area businesses who have continued purchasing it in bulk supply.”