We caught up with the brilliant and insightful JoAnn Elardo a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

JoAnn, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. One of the most important things we can do as business owners is ensure that our customers feel appreciated. What’s something you’ve done or seen a business owner do to help a customer feel valued?

Hello my name is JoAnn Elardo and I am a serial Entrepreneur :).
This next time around (after selling my previous Company) I wanted to control the product – make something I am very proud of and a product that uses the best ingredients and helps our community. Wicked Dolphin Distillery was started with these thoughts and I am thankful we stayed on course using Florida agriculture. We are a Fresh from Florida product which means we use 98% Florida Agriculture in our Rums and Vodka’s.
Taking the time and doing it right, we want to give a great experience to visitors and customers from all over. It is one of the reasons are tours and tastings are free. We believe in our Wicked Dolphin products and hope you will enjoy too.
If you go on line to www.wickeddolphin.com you can book a tour at the distillery and see how we make our Awarded Florida Spirits.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I started my own business in 1989. I had a small exporting business of sporting goods to the islands. I watched in 1989 as the Berlin wall came down and hopped on a plane to Berlin ( you could not get a flight further East at that time). At 28 I made my way by train into Warsaw, Poland. I knew I could start a business here. My husband was in Sporting goods in NY and on that first trip, I started making contacts and selling. Opening our first store in Oct of 1990 we were a hit. Because I had the connections in the USA – I also started to Distribute products. In 18 years we became one of the largest independently owned US Sports footwear Distributors in Central and Eastern Europe. In 2008 I sold and semi retired to Florida. I became involved in a lot of local Charities and even founded the Cape Coral Animal Shelter while starting our Wicked Dolphin Distillery.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

When starting Wicked Dolphin Distillery in 2011 there were not many Distilleries in Florida. It was a difficult time as we figured out state and local building codes with our city. A lot of people would of given up, we had to really work hard in order to get the Distillery built. We were also not able to sell our products to customers that came into Wicked Dolphin Distillery, so we never even had a sign on the building saying we are a Distillery. So many people used to stop by and ask, “What are you doing in there?” it would take me hours each day telling people what we were doing. It is interesting and a lot of states were allowing sales of Distilled Spirits in Distilleries, Florida was not. I met up with a few other people that were looking to start Distilleries for tourism and we lobbied to change the Florida laws – I spoke in front of the Florida House of Representatives and our small group started the rights for Craft Distillers in Florida. Wicked Dolphin Distillery was the first Distillery since Prohibition to sell a bottle of spirits made in their Distillery.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

The greats lesson is always – Keep going, look for a path and never take no for the answer.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.wickeddolphin.com
• Instagram: @wickeddolphin
• Facebook: Wicked Dolphin
• Twitter: @wickedolphin
• Youtube: Wicked Dolphin

Image Credits
Wicked Dolphin Distillery