Many Utahns need distilled water to make baby formula, or for use in CPAP and BiPAP machines. Because it has been treated to remove minerals and impurities, distilled water is safer than boiled or bottled water for these uses.

John Eau Claire didn’t know there was a distilled water shortage until he read about it in the Salt Lake Tribune. Soon after, Eau Claire, who is the COO of Clear Water Distilling in Pleasant Grove, said the business began getting phone calls from people in search of distilled water. However, Clear Water Distilling doesn’t typically distill water, rather it distills spirits like whiskey.

“We just kind of felt that maybe people were maybe misinformed because the name Clear Water Distilling, they thought that maybe we’re a water distillation plant… my last name is Eau Claire in French the translation is clear water,” Eau Claire said. “We found out that distilled water on the grocery store shelves is virtually nil.”

When Eau Claire and the team at Clear Water Distilling realized how serious the distilled water shortage is, they began to produce distilled water using their existing equipment.

“The only difference between ours [equipment] versus say a distilled water company is we have copper helmets on the top of ours which are primarily used in the distilling world to take out impurities, it does the same for the water,” Eau Claire said. “It’s just a chemical reaction that takes additional impurities out, but distilled water by nature at the end of the day is just your hydrogen and oxygen.”

Clear Water Distilling is now giving this distilled water away free of charge to those in need. Eau Claire said that so far, those who have been able to get water from the distillery have been extremely grateful. Many of them have been scouring local stores for days attempting to find the product.

“It’s been pretty amazing, we had a guy that was just ecstatic he’s been looking all over,” Eau Claire said. “For those that do get it in their hands, it’s just gratitude.”

Eau Claire wants to be sure that anyone, even those who abstain from alcohol, feels comfortable coming to get distilled water from Clear Water Distilling. There is no purchase of alcohol required to obtain distilled water, and there is no trace of alcohol in the distilled water.

“There’s no alcohol in the water or anything like that, every time we do a spirit run we’ve got a CIP cleaning program in place so everything’s taken care of and cleaned and sanitized… there’s no residue or anything like that,” Eau Claire said. “We’re not bad people, this is just what we do for a living.”

Those in need of distilled water are invited to bring their own containers and visit Clear Water Distilling located in Pleasant Grove.