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https://nypost.com/2020/05/02/coron...Vvzoa-4do8ok5W9fhYjTjAt-VA_snuQeXpxMIxrko1594
Impractical Jokers’ star Brian Quinn turning beer into hand sanitizer
By Dean Balsamini
This is no pandemic prank.
“Impractical Jokers” star Brian “Q” Quinn is donating unsold kegs of beer from his Staten Island-based Rubsam & Horrmann Brewing Co. to pull off his greatest trick: Recasting hops and barley into coveted hand sanitizer for his hometown hero cops, firefighters and hospital workers.
The former fireman re-launched the long-shuttered brewery in September.
The cringe comedy bro of truTV’s hit hidden-camera series is teaming up with Kings County Distillery in Brooklyn to convert the Pilsner, Ipa and Amber suds into coronavirus-fighting cleanser.
“This was a no-brainer to me,” Quinn, 44. told The Post. “It’s tough to see what everybody is going through.”
Quinn bought lunch — catered from a local deli — for his former comrades at Ladder 86/Engine 166 in his native borough of Staten Island but “felt useless.” He wanted to do more.
When Cara Gordon, R&H’s chief operating officer, learned Kings County Distillery was looking to convert beer donations into hand sanitizer, she ran it by Quinn, who “was on board immediately.”
The alcohol alchemy: Kings County empties the kegs and distills the beer three times in order to get it strong enough for alcohol-based sanitizer. From there, they mix it per WHO/FDA requirements with glycerin, hydrogen peroxide, and denaturant, a substance added to alcohol to make it unfit for drinking. Then it’s bottled and ready to go. “From kegs to bottling it’s about six days,” the distillery said, adding that the final product is 80 percent ethanol.
“Distilleries always joke about the cleaning properties of the same alcohol that we put into barrels for people to enjoy,” Kings County Distillery owner Colin Spoelman said.
On Thursday, R&H Brew donated 1,467 gallons of beer. In a week, they will pick up 900 bottles of the suds-to-sanitizer and bring it back across the Verrazzano Bridge.
“I want to get the hand sanitizers to the city workers,” Quinn said, noting his dad was an MTA motorman in the 1980s. “It’s tough to talk to your friends. They’re worried. Their families are worried. There are guys at my firehouse whose families have gotten corona from the guys,” he said.
As for this Impractical Joker, Quinn has spent his shelter-in-place time watching old “Wrestlemania” bouts and binge-watching “Lost.”
“It’s hard to write comedy when you’re worried all the time,” he said.
Quinn said the hops to hand sanitizer is no joke.
“It’s hand sanitizer, not beer. So please don’t try to drink it.”
