John Ferolito is an American entrepreneur who is co-founder of the

Arizona Beverage Company Arizona Beverages USA (stylized as AriZona) is an American producer of many flavors of iced tea, juice cocktails, and energy drinks based in Woodbury, New York. Arizona's first product was made available in 1992, to compete with Snapple. Bot ...

, maker of Arizona Iced Tea.

AriZona Iced Tea

Ferolito joined with partner

Don Vultaggio Domenick "Don" Vultaggio (born 1951/1952) is an American billionaire businessman, the co-founder of Arizona Beverage Company. As of August 2022, his net worth was estimated at US$4.4 billion. Early life Vultaggio grew up in Flatbush, a workin ...

in the 1970s to establish a

Brooklyn Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...

-based discount beer and soda delivery company, starting with a used Volkswagen bus and adding trucks as the business grew. The company ventured into flavored seltzer and its own brand of malt liquor in its early years. AriZona Iced Tea, the company's flagship product, was first introduced in 1992.

AriZona buyout

After a falling-out between the two founding partners, Vultaggio prevailed in a 2012 suit against Ferolito. The

New York Supreme Court, Appellate Division The Appellate Divisions of the Supreme Court of the State of New York are the intermediate appellate courts in New York State. There are four Appellate Divisions, one in each of the state's four Judicial Departments (e.g., the full title of the ...

ruled that the company could buy out Ferolito's half-interest, which Ferolito had sought to sell to major international beverage companies. While Vultaggio's attorneys pointed to a 2007 estimated value of $430 million for the company, Ferolito estimated that the company that had become Beverage Marketing USA Inc. was worth as much as $6 billion.

Golfgate incident

Ferolito, a resident of the Short Hills section of Millburn, New Jersey, was the target of a lawsuit that claimed that he had been negligent when taking a

mulligan Mulligan may refer to: Arts and entertainment * Mulligan (games), a second chance given to a player to perform a certain move or action * ''Mulligans'' (film), a 2008 movie * ''Mulligan'' (TV series), an animated sitcom Places * Mulligan, New ...

at an area golf course and struck another golfer with his ball, knocking him unconscious.Ramirez, Anthony
"Metro Briefing"
''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'', March 14, 2001. Accessed January 23, 2013. "The case dates to a 1994 golf outing at the East Orange Golf Course, when John Ferolito of Short Hills hit a mulligan, or second tee shot, and struck Jeffrey Schick in the eye, knocking him unconscious. He sued." The incident occurred at the 16th hole of the East Orange Golf Course, where Ferolito and his partner had joined together with another pair of players. While the general legal principle is that accidents and injuries are an expected result of sports activities and that individuals assume that risk when they participate, the attorney for the person hit by Ferolito's errant shot argued that "anticipating that someone is going to hit a mulligan at point-blank range is not a standard part of the game". MacFarquhar, Neil
"Extra and Errant Tee Shot May Hit Golfer's Wallet, Too"
''

'', January 28, 2000. Accessed January 23, 2013.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ferolito, John Year of birth missing (living people) Living people American drink industry businesspeople People from Millburn, New Jersey