As a pharmacist at South West Healthcare at the onset of COVID 19 in 2020, Peter Lee was acutely aware of the role that Timboon Railway Shed Distillery owner, Josh Walker, and other Australian distilleries played in quickly adapting their distillation production to produce sanitizer products. Now a graduate teacher teaching VCE Chemistry at Timboon, Peter relished the opportunity to introduce his students to Josh during a distillery tour where Josh described the chemistry behind his products. Josh described the whiskey distillation process and how the whiskey is then matured in oak barrels to aid maturation and provide flavour. As students are investigating families of organic compounds and the similarities in their physical and chemical properties, they could appreciate that the COVID induced shortage of hand sanitizer meant that distillers could pivot to provide ethanol as alcohol is the main component of both hand sanitizer and whiskey but hand sanitizer does not require aging or oak storage! What a great opportunity for students to learn about the distillation process, different types of alcohols and their uses and to be able to connect curriculum content to the real-world application of chemistry. Thank you Josh! Comments are closed.
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