Speaker 1: 0:09

All right, well, welcome back to the Vero Beach podcast, and we're excited to really dive into some of the history behind Vero Beach. Like you know, usually we're asking people, ray, like what do you love most about Vero Beach? You have a lot of knowledge about the history of it and I'm really excited to dive into that. I mean, we already touched a little bit about the treasures that's hidden. Do you know where any of the treasures are that are hidden?

Speaker 2: 0:30

I mean, I know where all of it's at. You know where it's all at.

Speaker 3: 0:32

It's all somewhere out there in the water. He's just not allowed to go out there.

Speaker 2: 0:39

That's the problem. That happened 300 years ago, you know. So it's covered up by some sand now.

Speaker 1: 0:45

Yeah Well, you know I do have to say, before we get into the history of stuff, I absolutely love your. You guys are right now in the middle of doing a scavenger hunt. I saw your post on on instagram and absolutely loved it. I thought it was so well done. Who does your? Who does your social media?

Speaker 2: 1:01

uh huff does our posts, okay, mandy does. Uh. Alex huff, uh, from alex huff. Social media okay, uh, she does our post, our regular posts. Mand Mandy does the event posts and I do all the creative real content. Oh, that's all me.

Speaker 3: 1:18

Wow, it's a team effort.

Speaker 1: 1:20

I like that that's very cool. Well, it's very well done. Thank you, I got my attention all the way through. I've actually watched it a couple times, shown it off to some people, but it's really cool. Tell us a little bit about that, like what you're giving away and how that works.

Speaker 2: 1:40

That's really cool so right now and you can see my ball cap and I'm sure you've seen this logo all over the place this is indian river county's 100 year centennial Wow.

Speaker 2: 1:53

So we've been a county for 100 years. There's going to be a centennial parade in a couple of weeks, a centennial celebration, a pioneer ceremony for the pioneering families of Indian River County, which my pioneering family name would be Kersey, k-e-r-s-e-y. The Kerseys came into Indian River County in like 1903, and they bought a piece of property on a little island called John's Island, over on the beach side, you know, on our barrier island. I've seen deeds for up to 30 acres, but my impression was it was 10 acres. So they had a homestead, little farm house, things like that. So that's what qualifies us to be a pioneering family, because we were here before Indian River County was even a name. We're also a pioneering family in Florida because we were in Florida before Florida was voted on to be a state Wow. So we've got Florida, we've got the Florida bug and we've got it bad.

Speaker 2: 3:03

So when the centennial started, michelle Wagner, the historian librarian at the library, asked me if I wanted to be on the committee. I told her yeah, along with all of the other things I got to do, but I'd like to do that, so I've helped out where I can. And so they asked us to create a centennial whiskey. Okay, we can do that. So we created a blend of our whiskey and we offered a hundred bottles to the public in a hundred years. Wow, it was in a nice you know oak box or wood box that mandy and I, uh, we stained on our porch and I had a local guy laser all of the logos in it. Oh, that's cool, it's a really cool thing.

Speaker 2: 3:56

So we did a hundred bottles and the goal was to put bottle number 100 and to the time capsule that's going into the ground at the County administration building at the complex this year and it will be buried for 50 years. And then the idea was you open it up 50 years later. By that time Chandler will be in his mid sixties, you know, and, uh, the bottle will be there and he can open it and everybody can taste what him and dad did 50 years ago. Um, somebody poo pooed on that idea. It's, it's just not happening now.

Speaker 2: 4:33

Um, so we decided what's a cool way that we could get that bottle out there, because everybody has been hunting bottle number 100 of the 100 year centennial. You know it's a, it's a thing. So I said, all right, well, we'll just do it in a scavenger hunt and we'll use that scavenger hunt to run these people all over this county to places that they don't know or hear I love that so you will very much learn about the history of indian river county as you go on this little scavenger hunt.

Speaker 2: 5:07

It's a clue a day for 10 days, okay so, Okay. So everyone has to go to each one of the sites, take a picture and tag us on Facebook that they posted the picture. And then on the last day, there's a bottle hidden somewhere at the last clue and you pull the voucher out of the box, the bottle in the box, and bring it in here and I can check. If you hit all 10 places and bring me the voucher, the first one of you guys that does that gets bottle number 100. June 14th.

Speaker 1: 5:42

That's the end.

Speaker 3: 5:43

That's the end. The beginning is the 5th.

Speaker 2: 5:45

June 5th correct.

Speaker 3: 5:47

Clear the schedule.

Speaker 1: 5:48

Clear the schedule. If this drops later, I'm sorry. And hopefully you're talking to the winners. Yeah, hopefully you're listening to the winners. Hopefully you're listening to the winners. Yes, as you know, as an entrepreneur, you're going to have to pivot. I love how you pivoted, but also, at the same time, you're doing the scavenger and also you're doing the scavenger hunt to get the community involved and at the same time, you're helping to educate them. Again, it aligns right with your purpose.

Speaker 3: 6:11

Absolutely I love that.

Speaker 1: 6:12

I'm all about purpose Like. When we're doing whatever you're doing on digital, it's like what is your purpose Like? Don't lose track of that, because that's what sets you apart.

Speaker 2: 6:19

I do a lot of goofing off on there too. If you scroll through my reels, you saw that.

Speaker 3: 6:23

Goofing off can be 100%. Believe that.

Speaker 1: 6:29

Now, and what you poured us a sample of here, that is the whiskey right there. That is the whiskey, yep, correct, and I tell you what it's good. So if the scavenger hunt is not over yet and this has been published, you better get out there and try to win this thing because it's good.

Speaker 2: 6:44

It's a really nice whiskey.

Speaker 3: 6:45

It really is, yeah because if someone came to the party a little late, let's say, could they catch up on the clues and still you know, Absolutely Okay If you did all the clues in two days.

Speaker 2: 6:55

I'm fine with that. Okay, great, just as long as you post all of them and tag our page and you know, find the voucher and bring it here. But but every game face on, there's a couple of people that are really hot, I bet there are oh babe, I yeah Babe I don't know, hey, don't lose.

Speaker 1: 7:10

Listen, if we don't win, what we'll do is we'll need to schedule an interview with the people that did win so they could share some of the whiskey with us.

Speaker 3: 7:17

Or we steal it. You know what?

Speaker 2: 7:20

When you do it and you participate, I guarantee you the things you learn and the places I send you will make it worthwhile. That's cool, yeah.

Speaker 3: 7:29

That's cool. Oh, that's a good point.

Speaker 1: 7:32

I send you will make it worthwhile. That's cool, yeah, oh that's a good point. I love that. I love that. Okay, challenge accepted. So so, ray, what has running a distillery taught you about the community People?

Speaker 2: 7:40

are good people. You know, I, I, I knew that, um, an example would be, uh, these, these fancy Glen carrying glasses. I think I've had one stolen, it's, you know, that's, that's pretty good, and I know, know who did it. I'll point them out to you. One time I had it on video, you know. So it's, it's, uh, it's for the most part. People are really good. Occasionally you get some turds and you gotta flush the toilet, but it's, uh, it's for the most part. People. People are good. They don't remember anything. So you have to constantly anything, so you have to constantly remind, you know, you have to constantly remind your market and you have to constantly be in that face.

Speaker 1: 8:16

So you you talked about earlier I think it was episode one you talked a little bit about one of the bottles that was named after it was some people that was from a part of a old gang, is that right?

Speaker 2: 8:24

Okay, yeah, so we got to talk about the notorious Ashley gang. Yes, because if you don't know them, you you really don't know. You know about the rebellious nature of Florida. So during the twenties there was a gentleman, his name was John Hopkins, ashley Hopkins Ashley, not no S on there. Uh, he was uh hooking up with a lady named Laura up the Grove. Up the Grove is a Florida family name. There's an Up the Grove beach on an Okeechobee. If you look at Google Maps, you'll see Up the Grove beach.

Speaker 2: 8:57

On this front corner of the lake there was Clarence Middleton, hanford Mobley and Ray Lynn. Ray is his first name, lynn is his last name and that was the notorious Ashley gang gang and if you read the the early stories, they were feared gangsters that ran a path of destruction all through the state of florida and really, when you really start finding out what was going on, these were some bad dudes, for sure, but there was a lot of bad dudes back then. These are the bad dudes that didn't really put up anybody's crap, but they helped a lot of people. He, he had a few going on with the sheriff of then Palm Beach County, because it was St Lucie County and then it was Palm Beach County so he had a few going on back and forth with them, like one time they found one of John Ashley's hideouts and the sheriff sent a couple of deputies out there to take care of him and John and the boys found them sneaking up to the cabin and stripped them down naked and dropped them off in front of the sheriff's department. John had been in jail multiple times and broke out of jail he got his eye shot out in a bank robbery in Palm Beach County.

Speaker 2: 10:09

They actually were the last time pirates robbed the British crown. They got tired of rum coming in from the Bahamas and people not using their stuff, so they mounted up in a boat and went to the Bahamas and robbed the Brits. So they had a back and forth thing going. They tend to have a knack for escaping law enforcement and evading them, turns out in modern times. We figured it out because they had sympathetic members of the black community and at that time a lot of law enforcement was involved in oppressing the black community. So you know, they help people out and people help them and there's lots of stories of of you know families that had a hard time and all of a sudden what they needed showed up on their front door, so it's very much a robin hood I was just gonna say the florida version of florida version of robin hood.

Speaker 2: 11:01

so sheriff baker was caught. Word that the ashley gang was heading up us1 or dixie highway. They called it, okay, before. Us1 here was here, old dixie was here, okay, called it before us. One here was here, old Dixie was here, okay. And they said, all right, well, we're going to catch these boys coming through here and we're going to get them for good.

Speaker 2: 11:17

They knew that the choke point was the Sebastian river bridge, going over the Sebastian river into Brevard County Not in the same place it was now it is, now is in a little bit different spot. And they hung a chain across the road and hung a red lantern on the chain which meant stop, the bridge isn't safe. So when the ashley gang stopped and got out, the sheriff deputies jumped out and ambushed. Well, they got him in handcuffs and apparently john ashley tried to shoot the sheriff while he was handcuffed. So they gunned the entire gang down there on the bridge, killed everyone. Wow, they took their bodies down to I think it was PP Cobb store, um and Fort Pierce, which was at that time the post office, and they laid them out for everybody to take pictures up. Well, one of the sheriff deputies that was there that night on his deathbed released his biography explaining what happened. The sheriff said we're not going to put these boys back in jail because they always break out. We're ending this right now. And they executed them right there on the bridge. That was Florida justice. That's how stuff worked back then.

Speaker 2: 12:22

And uh, so we wanted to let people know about the Ashley gang, because people don't think about that. Florida is all Disney world and it's all, uh, all Miami, south beach, you know, and uh, so that's why we came up with Ray Lynn's reserve bourbon whiskey and that's why we came up with JHA rye, which is John Hopkins, ashley rye. Um, we got uh, others that'll release that are, you know, gang members later on as our products start to develop a little bit. But it's all a good way to teach the the history of Florida. You know the little stories on the back of the bottle and it just gets people to who is this guy? Yeah, and they can Google them and it'll all pop up. You guys should take a ride to the Elliott museum and Stuart.

Speaker 2: 13:11

If you haven't been there the Elliott museum has a uh, an Ashley gang exhibit, so they've got John Ashley's glass eye no way In the museum, wow, oh. Yeah, is Glass Eye no way In the museum?

Speaker 3: 13:23

Wow, oh yeah, we will go, oh yeah We'll definitely have to check that out.

Speaker 2: 13:26

I think they've got his gun in there. They've got a model of one of his camps in there. It's pretty cool and there's a lot of things in that museum you guys are going to want to see for sure.

Speaker 1: 13:33

We'll definitely have to check that out. Well, I was getting concerned there for a Hopkins but had an S at the end, so this is not the same John Hopkins, this is John Hopkins. So that makes Hopkins Ashley, hopkins, ashley, yeah that's right.

Speaker 3: 13:46

That one was stuck in Ohio so he wasn't cool enough to be in Florida.

Speaker 1: 13:49

I didn't know that my state farm agent went way back on that.

Speaker 2: 13:54

Hopkins was the middle name. There you go.

Speaker 1: 13:56

Hopkins was the middle name. I'm excited to learn more about the Vero Beach community. I'm so glad that we get a call at home and getting to connect with people like yourself, ray. What would you say you love most about Vero? You've been here your whole life. What's your favorite thing about Vero? The community sense of community.

Speaker 2: 14:12

You know, mandy and I had lunch a little bit earlier at the barbecue place in town and I saw four people. I know that's awesome. This is a larger town. It's definitely not a little bitty town at all, but it has very much small town vibes.

Speaker 1: 14:28

We're definitely learning that. What's the barbecue place? 14.

Speaker 2: 14:31

Bones.

Speaker 3: 14:31

Oh yeah, we haven't been there yet, but we passed by it the other day.

Speaker 1: 14:35

That's a good lunch spot if you want to go in there and sit down. Looking back, Ray, at your past and where you've come to today, is there anything that you would tell the younger version of you?

Speaker 2: 14:47

Yeah, relax and slow down a little, don't take things so serious.

Speaker 1: 14:52

Yeah, oh man, it's so good.

Speaker 2: 14:54

I've always been pretty laid back, but just more so now that I'm a little bit older.

Speaker 1: 14:57

I think it really starts sinking in when you get in your forties, I think. I think I've noticed that for myself as well.

Speaker 3: 15:02

So and maybe a little bit like when you see your children getting to that young man stage. You see them striving so hard and from this side of it you're like just enjoy your life. You're only in your teens and your 20s one time. Yeah, but they're so hard on themselves.

Speaker 2: 15:21

Absolutely. And you know what? Talk to old people. Talk to old people. They are so valuable.

Speaker 2: 15:29

I love that it's so many things that I've been pretty good about it in my life of learning and shut my mouth up and learn it from people. But sitting down and just learning where they come from, what's their point of view, why do they think that way? Why do they do things that way? Just talking to some of these old crackers and that's somebody that's from Florida the way that they had to survive, it would blow your mind. I was talking to, I called her Granny Fink one time and that's when these sandhill cranes were making their comeback.

Speaker 1: 16:08

You know the big birds with the red head that looks like a velociraptor, like a dinosaur, yeah.

Speaker 2: 16:13

And I said something to her one time Granny, you ever eat one of them? She says, man, I ate a bunch of them. She says, when you're as hungry as we, were, a bird that'll stand there that big and let you grab it. It's going in the pot. I was like, yep, I guess you're right. And then she started telling us about you know that everybody had these houses, these cracker houses that were built up off the ground. Well, they would put chicken wire around the bottom of it and whenever they would catch gopher turtles, they would put them under their house and just throw brush under there for them to eat. So when they got really hungry they could climb under there and have one of the boys go into there and get one of the gopher turtles.

Speaker 3: 16:55

Wow, soup pot that really makes so much sense yeah it does easy food, yeah, yeah, wow I heard someone say once that sandhill cranes are the filet mignon of the sky.

Speaker 2: 17:06

Rib eye of the sky.

Speaker 3: 17:07

Rib eye, rib eye.

Speaker 2: 17:09

They taste amazing. Their breast is the most tender red meat you have ever seen, not a Florida one. They're protected here.

Speaker 1: 17:19

You can't do that.

Speaker 2: 17:20

But certain states have a bag limit and you can take three a day or something along those lines. They're actually a migratory bird. They hunt them like they do geese Right, right, and I had a buddy of mine bring me a couple of Sandhill crane breast and it looks like a ribeye steak. It's beautiful.

Speaker 3: 17:38

I don't know if this is similar. I have eaten ostrich before and it was amazing. Well, the ostrich before and it was amazing, so maybe they're just taller.

Speaker 2: 17:50

It was like a steak. Yeah, yeah, it's gonna be ready too.

Speaker 1: 17:51

Yeah, that's good. I'm glad he clarified that. I think that was that's really good wisdom to is speak to talk to the older people, because I know that's one thing that we've talked about many times, shauna, that you and me we thought my grandpa told me he passed away at 83 or 82. I forgot when he passed away, but before, before that, he told us OK, I will tell you exactly what he said to me, because I will never forget it.

Speaker 3: 18:16

He said when you're in your 40s, you're in your prime, and of course I think I might have been in my thirties. I was like what? But it's helped me so much because when you get to your forties, and maybe especially as a woman, you're like oh, it's all over now, but it it is.

Speaker 1: 18:32

There's so much, there's more settledness, wisdom clarity, clarity, yeah, a lot of different things. You decide what is really important for you in your life, like what really makes you happy. You stopped chasing a lot of the things.

Speaker 2: 18:44

Yeah, 45 year old Ray could take 25 year old Ray. We had, uh we wanted to do uh an event. You know, in our theme for the centennial we called it stories by the still. So I know some good old boys that are all pretty good storytellers and whenever you get some older good old boys and you feed them whiskey and let them talk, it's going to be good no matter what, especially the personalities that we brought in, and we sat around the still over there in the tasting room and I set up a PA system and just let these boys talk and it was amazing to the point that I'm going to do stories around the still on a pretty regular basis.

Speaker 2: 19:23

I really feel that storytelling is a skill that's being lost, especially with our young people, and there is an art and there's a skill to storytelling. I'm just learning it. I'm not, I don't have it perfected. These good old boys got it. Charlie Simbler when he walked up he was talking about the rough ways that Sebastian boys were raised because Sebastian was a fishing community back then. They banned fishing nets when I was about 12 or 15 years old but up until then Sebastian was a fishing village and it was fishermen went out every day with gill nets and they came in and the fish houses and he said you ever tell somebody they need to stop running their mouth and they don't listen to you. I guess a couple of times he goes here's how I do it. He holds out his hand and he's got a bunch of teeth in his hand and he says I think you talk too much and I was like that's pretty good, that is pretty good.

Speaker 1: 20:15

I like that. Yeah, That'll leave an impact Wow now that's a good storyteller right there. That's a good storyteller right there.

Speaker 3: 20:21

Oh yeah, for sure If he asks his dentist like can I just have those?

Speaker 2: 20:23

I ask my buddy that's a dentist, and he says what do you want those for? Ray, I'm not that kind of dentist.

Speaker 1: 20:30

Well, ray. I want to thank you, ann, for taking the time to sit down with us and sharing your story and helping us get to know you, the owner behind the Indian River Distillery, and your purpose and why the community means so much. It has really helped educate us and I love that because that aligns with your purpose too Absolutely. Educating. Thank you so much. What's the best way? Okay, you guys have an Instagram account. What's your Instagram account?

Speaker 2: 20:52

Instagramcom slash IR distillery. Facebookcom slash IR distillery, or you can visit our website at wwwindianriverdistillerycom, or just stop by and knock on the door and ask me.

Speaker 3: 21:05

I like that option.

Speaker 2: 21:06

Yeah, I love that we're at 3308 Aviation Boulevard.

Speaker 1: 21:10

With that, everybody, thank you for tuning in to the Vero Beach Podcast. If you've enjoyed this episode, make sure you click review and if you have any questions or thoughts, make sure you click that link in the description in the show notes that said Texas. Make sure you also stop in right down here at the Indian River Distillery.

Speaker 3: 21:25

Thanks for listening, neighbor.