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Cheeky Cocktails

Brooklyn, NYBrand · Food and drink

In 2015 our founder and beverage industry veteran, April Wachtel, was teaching cocktail classes at Astor Center in New York City and working as a brand ambassador for Bacardi. The craft cocktail movement had become a global phenomenon since Dale Degroff's work at the Rainbow Room in the 80s and 90s, and speakeasy-style craft cocktail bars were popping up in small cities and remote regions around the world. April realized her students wanted to make bar-quality cocktails at home but couldn't access the essential ingredients behind bars, like 100% citrus juices (not from concentrate and without preservatives) and standard bar syrups like simple syrup and ginger syrup. Craft cocktail bartenders made all their ingredients from scratch, and no brand sold shelf-stable versions made with real bar recipes. However, home consumers weren't the only ones struggling with this problem. As cocktail programs (and drink volume) grew, the "everything from scratch" model broke, and programs struggled with consistency, labor, cost, speed of service, and more. April decided someone should make a product that helped solve this problem for consumers and professional bartenders. She launched a cocktail batching and delivery service called Swig + Swallow in 2015, evolving it multiple times before pulling it apart and putting it back together as Cheeky, launching into the first wave of COVID in 2020. Cheeky is currently served in bar programs at four-star hotels, stadiums, and resorts, ships nationally within the US and Canada, and is sold in boutiques, gourmet grocers, and liquor stores in 44 states, Canada, France, Germany, the UK, and Australia. Cheeky has been recognized in the New York Times, the Washington Post, and other publications.