Ray Hooker
Raymond C. Hooker’s path to whiskey began in Indian River County, Florida, where his family’s roots reach back generations. Born in August of 1979, Ray is a fifth-generation Floridian and third-generation Indian River County resident. He grew up in the Vero Beach area and graduated from Sebastian River High School there. His family has lived in Indian River County since 1903, while his Florida ancestry extends to before statehood. That deep connection to place would eventually become one of the defining characteristics of the whiskey he produces.
His wife, Amanda (better known as Mandy), has been closely involved in Ray’s businesses from the beginning. Long before whiskey became the family pursuit, Ray and Mandy Hooker built another enterprise, literally, from the ground up. In 2006, they started a lawn, landscaping and pest-control company with little more than a trailer and a mower purchased on credit. Hooker went door to door finding customers, and over the next 14 years, the business grew exponentially, finally to employ as many as 19 people.
Whiskey entered Hooker’s life as something considerably less formal. He and some friends began experimenting with fermentation and distillation as a hobby. Hooker already enjoyed spirits—single malt whiskey was a particular favorite—and fermentation interested him more than beer or wine. A gathering around a campfire in the Florida scrub in 2014 helped turn that curiosity into an idea, yet Ray knew that he was not yet ready to immediately form a business. Instead, he and Mandy began a long period of education.
Their quest started with researching the craft-distilling industry, visiting operating distilleries and seeking advice wherever they could find it. Their education included coursework through the Institute of Brewing & Distilling and training at distilleries in Kentucky, while they studied historical and modern production techniques, licensing, government regulations, pricing and distribution. Ray later estimated that they had spent roughly four years studying the regulatory and business side of the industry. After that, his education also became intensely practical when Ray regularly drove roughly an hour and a half north to Sugar Works Distillery. There he worked alongside owner Tom McPeek several days a week, arriving early and staying through the workday in exchange for the opportunity to learn.
The Hookers eventually sold their landscaping and pest-control company and used the proceeds to finance Indian River Distillery. Their plan moved into public view in 2021, when Vero Beach officials considered the zoning changes necessary to permit a craft distillery at the Vero Beach Regional Airport. Ray and Mandy proposed converting a roughly 4,000-square-foot former beauty salon and spa into a production facility with fermenters, a still and tasting room. The venture represented a substantial personal investment, but Hooker approached it with the experience of someone who had already spent more than a decade building and managing a small business. Indian River Distillery was thus established in 2021, secured its airport location in 2022 and began production in 2023. Not long after opening, the Hooker’s son Chandler joined them in the operation of the distillery.
Whiskey posed an immediate problem: good aged whiskey cannot be produced on opening day. Hooker addressed that issue with unusual transparency. Indian River initially purchased barrels from other distilleries and sold the product as “NOW Whiskey”—the letters meaning “Not Our Whiskey.” The label openly acknowledged that the spirit had not been distilled at Indian River. Meanwhile, Hooker began producing his own whiskey, starting with corn whiskey after the distillery’s first production runs of rum. His Notorious Ashley Gang Moonshine Corn Whiskey was made entirely from corn and distilled and bottled in Indian River County, tying the spirit to the notorious Ashley Gang, whose bootlegging and outlaw history forms part of the region’s early 20th-century past.
Bourbon became a more ambitious expression of Hooker’s developing whiskey program. He favors wheated bourbon and developed an Indian River mash bill built around two varieties of corn, Jimmy Red and yellow dent, which together make up about 60 percent of the grain bill, with malted wheat and barley completing it. Florida’s climate became another factor in his approach. The heat and humidity can drive rapid interaction between whiskey and oak, but Hooker rejects the idea that accelerated barrel color alone produces mature whiskey. Grain character still requires time to develop, and he has found that Florida maturation can accelerate some aspects of aging without equally accelerating others. That work led to Ray Lynn’s Reserve Wheated Bourbon, released in July 2024 as Indian River Distillery’s first premium bourbon. For that expression, rather than pretend the distillery possessed mature stocks it did not yet have, Hooker blended Indian River’s own young wheated bourbon with a carefully selected, well-aged 45-percent-wheat bourbon from Indiana. The arrangement allows the percentage of Indian River-produced whiskey to increase as Hooker’s own barrels mature. Ray has estimated that a complete transition away from sourced bourbon could take roughly seven years, making Ray Lynn’s Reserve a bridge between the young distillery’s present inventory and the whiskey Hooker intends eventually to produce entirely in Vero Beach.
Indian River now also produces JHA Rye Whiskey, a straight rye finished in Caribbean rum casks, and Clarence Middleton American Single Malt, made from 100 percent malted barley and aged in used bourbon barrels. His work with American single malt demonstrates the increasingly technical side of his distilling. Indian River uses a batch still fitted with a six-plate column, and Hooker manipulates reflux and his cuts to retain and concentrate grain-derived flavor rather than simply producing a highly rectified spirit. He has also continued experimenting with whiskey recipes and barrel maturation while teaching hands-on whiskey workshops in which participants mash, ferment, distill and barrel bourbon under his direction.
In the meantime, Indian River Distillery has also developed into a durable local business rather than merely a production experiment. Ray and Mandy received the Indian River County Chamber of Commerce’s 2024 Entrepreneur of the Year award after the company recorded a 33-percent increase in revenue during the preceding year. Hooker has remained active in Sunrise Rotary, has served as its president, and helps organize the Treasure Coast Craft Spirits Festival, which brings Florida distillers together in Vero Beach. His business philosophy reflects lessons learned during two decades as a local entrepreneur: communicate clearly, keep promises and control the direction of the business rather than allowing daily pressures to control it.
Ray Hooker therefore did not become a distiller simply when Indian River Distillery opened its doors in March 2023. His involvement with distillation stretches back roughly a decade before commercial production, beginning with experimentation, followed by years of research, formal instruction, mentorship and practical work inside another Florida distillery. Today, his whiskey program is still young enough that its oldest barrels are developing, but its direction is clear. Hooker is building toward bourbon made increasingly from his own Florida-distilled whiskey, while using corn, wheat, malt, oak and the demanding Florida climate to develop a style rooted in Vero Beach rather than borrowed from somewhere else. Indian River Distillery may be a young distillery, but Ray Hooker arrived at its still after years of preparation, and with the business experience to understand that good whiskey, like a durable company, cannot be rushed.
Sources:
Indian River Distillery official website, indianriverdistillery.com
Vero Beach Podcast, “Indian River Distillery – Part 1…”, Brian and Shawna, June 9, 2025, verobeachpodcast.com
Whiskey Lore, “Indian River Distillery…”, Drew Hannush, 2026, whiskeylore.org
Vero News, “Indian River Distillery Unveils New Premium Bourbon: Ray Lynn’s Reserve,” Community Submission, July 5, 2024, veronews.com
My Vero Beach, “Indian River Distillery Vero Beach – Local Spirits & Cocktails”, MyVeroBeach, July 7, 2025, myverobeach.com
Main Street Vero Beach, “About – Ray Hooker”, mainstreetverobeach.org
TC Palm , “Vero Beach couple…Open Distillery…”, September 17, 2021, Laurie Blandford, tcpalm.com
Contributed by Tracy McLemore, Fairview, Tennessee
