With stores across the country and region sold out for weeks of hand sanitizer, District residents and workers have been scrambling to find CDC-approved hand cleaning products.

Now, the mayor’s office has commissioned two D.C. businesses to convert their resources into producing thousands of gallons of hand sanitizer. Local distillery Republic Restoratives and coffee roaster Compass Coffee will be making a thousand gallons each of hand sanitizer that will then be allocated to first responders, health workers, and critical government personnel as they respond to the COVID-19 outbreak across the District, according to an announcement on Monday.

The businesses are being paid for their efforts but exact figures have not been provided as of yet. “These local small businesses will repurpose their operations to assist D.C. workers,” Mayor Muriel Bowser said in the press release. “This supports our local economy, and we are grateful to Republic Restoratives, Compass Coffee, and other businesses for stepping up to help during this public health emergency.” The mayor’s office also confirmed that it has reached out to other local businesses for additional hand sanitizer orders.

Earlier this month, Republic Restoratives announced that it was making an in-house “hand cleanser,” and would throw in a free bottle with every purchase of a bottle of their spirits. Almost immediately, Republic Restoratives Distillery’s co-founder Pia Carusone says the distillery started getting calls—not just from other local businesses, but District agencies, officials from other cities, and emergency workers inquiring about their ability to make hand cleanser.

“Getting calls from businesses is one thing,” Carusone tells DCist.“But when EMS and police are calling, that’s another thing.” She says the distillery even got a call from a law enforcement agency that insisted on anonymity.

As a distillery, Republic Restoratives is uniquely qualified to make the stuff. (Other distilleries, like MISCellaneous Distillery in Mount Airy, Md., have similarity gotten into sanitizer production.) The recipe calls for 140-proof ethyl alcohol, vegetable glycerine, and hydrogen peroxide. “In order to make it, you need high-proof spirit,” says Carusone. “You can’t just get Tito’s [Vodka], which is only 80 proof.”

While the distillery has a good deal of high-proof spirit stored up and ready to be used, it may need to purchase more. If so, it’s relatively easy to do so, because Republic Restoratives already has the appropriate permits. Carusone says it will take about a week to make a thousand gallons.

This seems to be a mutually beneficial agreement. The District gets much-needed hand sanitizer for front line workers in the COVID-19 outbreak and local businesses can get back to work while bringing in at least some revenue. Compass, which has not yet responded to requests for comment, laid off 150 of its 189 employees last week.

Carusone says it is still unclear what the exact supply costs will be and how much the distillery will make, but it certainly will provide at least a short term economic boost. “Really, anything is helpful right now to us,” she says. “Our business got decimated overnight.”