[00:00:10] Ray Latif: Hello friends, I'm Ray Latif and you're tuned into Taste Radio, the number one podcast for anyone building a business in food or beverage. The fastest way to find out if your strategy holds water? Put it in the market. For more than a decade, Cheeky Cocktails has built a following with premium syrups and juices designed to elevate at-home cocktails. Now, founder and CEO April Wachtel is pushing the brand into a first-of-its-kind functional tonic and shares how real-world feedback is reshaping everything from where the product belongs on shelf to how she's thinking about Cheeky's next chapter. For CPG founders, it's a compelling case for embracing iteration rather than waiting for perfection. Hey folks, it's Ray with Taste Radio. Right now I'm supremely honored to be sitting down with April Wachtel, who is the founder and CEO of Cheeky Cocktails. April, it's great to see you.
[00:01:13] April Wachtel: It's so great to see you. Thank you so much for having me.
[00:01:15] Ray Latif: Thank you so much for being here. You used to be based in the Boston area. Now you are based in? Brooklyn. Brooklyn, New York. Very specific. You didn't say New York City.
[00:01:24] April Wachtel: Well, it has a little bit of its own identity.
[00:01:26] Ray Latif: It does.
[00:01:27] April Wachtel: And everybody knows that Brooklyn's part of New York.
[00:01:29] Ray Latif: This is true, but people from Brooklyn are proud that they're from Brooklyn as opposed to New York City, which people usually associate with Manhattan.
[00:01:36] April Wachtel: Yeah, yeah. Well, I also feel like the food startup world is so strong in Brooklyn in particular that I think it does make a difference.
[00:01:45] Ray Latif: Is that why you moved there to kind of fit in with the food and beverage scene or because the food and beverage scene was so and is so thriving?
[00:01:51] April Wachtel: No, I think I moved there actually to be close to my rock climbing gym, to be honest, when I moved from Boston. But it just anecdotally, it just happened that the food scene was also amazing. And that's something that has definitely kept me in the borough since then.
[00:02:06] Ray Latif: Rock climbing, first passion.
[00:02:07] April Wachtel: One of my passions and one I've done probably for 16 or 17 years at this point. Primarily though, like, you know, plastic rock, we're talking about like indoor bouldering. So it's nothing, nothing too extreme.
[00:02:17] Ray Latif: You're not covering like the face of a mountain? No. No? Okay. No, no, no, not at all. All right. All right. Maybe one day.
[00:02:24] April Wachtel: Maybe one day. But ironically, I'm like terrified of heights. I know it doesn't make any sense.
[00:02:28] Ray Latif: No.
[00:02:29] April Wachtel: Yeah.
[00:02:29] Ray Latif: Well, at least you have some Cheeky Cocktails to ease that anxiety and tension.
[00:02:35] April Wachtel: Sure.
[00:02:35] Ray Latif: Sure.
[00:02:36] April Wachtel: Indeed.
[00:02:36] Ray Latif: Yeah. We are here today to talk about Cheeky Cocktails and the incredible brand that you've built over the last now 11 years. Is that right?
[00:02:44] April Wachtel: Yeah. I mean, I kind of don't like to count the first five or six just because we like didn't have even books for years. It was like very much learning how to do things. But yeah, I mean, it's been a long and evolving and very informative journey so far.
[00:02:57] Ray Latif: I wouldn't worry about the didn't have books phase of the company. There's a lot of people who, they're like, I need an accountant, I need a bookkeeper. Yeah, you kind of do.
[00:03:06] April Wachtel: It's such a small detail, you know, why worry about it?
[00:03:10] Ray Latif: Just little things like gross margin, profitability, you know, paying your vendors, things like that.
[00:03:14] April Wachtel: This is relevant.
[00:03:15] Ray Latif: Yeah. Yeah. Before you started your own company, you were sort of in the beverage industry in a different kind of capacity.
[00:03:22] April Wachtel: Yes. So I started working in restaurants when I was 13. So I was like a really industrious kid and I was like, I would like a job. So I started working in restaurants. I ended up staying in bars and restaurants through college. I went to school in Boston and then got into the craft cocktail scene probably 2009-ish.
[00:03:39] Ray Latif: Right around when it started to blow up.
[00:03:41] April Wachtel: Sure. Well, in Boston, for sure, because again, it had already been hitting in New York. But yeah, got into that more deeply. And then when I moved to New York in 2011, got into it even further, worked for some luminaries in the scene in New York, and then got into the spirits industry via brand ambassadorship and then consulting later on with Diageo as well.
[00:03:59] Ray Latif: Yeah. So what made you get into entrepreneurship? Why do you think this was a path that you could succeed at?
[00:04:05] April Wachtel: I think I was always just like an independent, curious kid. And I think that those attributes, you know, are very common both for creatives as well as entrepreneurs. And even when I was a kid, we would make these fake companies and then film these like crazy ads for them where we would just like invent the ad and put on accents and, you know, stage the entire scene. And so I think I always just wanted an opportunity to see what I was capable of doing. And because the creative thing, I was always having ideas for products that didn't seem to be on the market, at least in my awareness of the world. And so I had those ideas from when I was a child. And so later on, you know, you become hopefully a bit more pragmatic. And so the question was then, well, what am I good at? What do I know a lot about? What am I qualified to speak to or to develop? What can make money? You know, all those things around Ikigai. And ultimately, after having been in the beverage business for so long, I was like, there's got to be something in my experience here that puts me in a better position to launch a product or a company of some kind. And so ultimately V1 of what is now Cheeky was actually, it was a company called Swig and Swallow. There was no business behind it. It was just my exploration of like, what does it take to legally start an entity? And then I'm going to figure out what I'm going to put in the entity once I've figured that out. And lo and behold, I'm not sure I'd recommend that method. it because then you end up with a brand called Swig and Swallow and then you're like, well, goddamn, I've got to do something with this. But ultimately that was the journey that I took and it seems to have worked out okay so far.
[00:05:34] Ray Latif: Swig and Swallow is a good name for a brand. I like Cheeky a little bit better because I feel like it's something you can put on a sticker or a car or that people just will say, oh, Cheeky. Swig and Swallow takes a little bit more time to say.
[00:05:48] April Wachtel: It does. It was also very polarizing. And I actually think, you know, one of the things that I love about this journey is that you learn so much from so many people that you speak to. Some could have deep expertise in the space. Some could have a lot of entrepreneurial experience and some could just be random people who just remark on your product. But in 20, I think it was 2017 maybe, I was a guest on the Pitch podcast. And I would say I was very confused going into that pitch. Like it was just a really tough time with Swig and Swallow. And I went in and I pitched to, I think it was four VCs and one Angel. And I remember Jillian McManus commented about the name Swig and Swallow. And she was like, it's not like you're like going down the street to buy a Swig and Swallow. And then they had a sort of discussion about it. And I remember internalizing that and thinking about it for years, but I didn't have a better name. And so ultimately, for probably two years, I just was trying to figure out what is the right word? What is the right word? What is the right word? And then out of the blue, I was like, cheeky. It has precedence in drinking in British Culture Pop know, a cheeky pint or a Cheeky Cocktails or whatever. And then lo and behold, bizarrely, the trademark was available. And so then I was just like, OK, this is go time. And like, it's time to revamp this entire thing.
[00:06:56] Ray Latif: Yeah. Good timing too. Indeed. Yeah. 2020.
[00:07:00] April Wachtel: Well, I think it was, I think, well, no, I mean, and that's actually ironic is I pulled apart Swig and Swallow in 2019. And like the original plan was April of 2020, I'm going to casually launch us. I'm going to do all these things right that I didn't do right the first time. Like everything that we just rushed through in the spirit of just getting a, an MVP out there, a minimum viable product. I was like, I'm gonna take my time and there's no rush and it's a beautiful thing. And so of course, March of 2020, COVID hits and it was just like, okay, the thing that is very obvious is now you have to go really fast because you don't know what is gonna happen in two weeks, in four weeks, whatever. And so ultimately, like I was waiting for a designer to turn around the brand. It was like, we were already in the third iteration of the brand identity and there was no website and we had the formulas, we had the name, we had the facility and that was it. And then ultimately I was just like, I can't wait for a month for them to do this thing. So then I just like banged out everything. I think it was like nine hours later we had a website, we had photography, we had labels. It was like a very crazy rush process and we've just continued to iterate since then.
[00:08:05] Ray Latif: I mean, good timing. I said it a little bit in jest, but it was also good timing in that at the time people were making cocktails at home. No one was going to bars or very few people were going to bars and restaurants. And so cocktail making at home started to blow up. I think about ordering from companies back in 2020 and 2021, and I think some of them I haven't spent a dime since, just it was the right place, right time. But how are you able to develop Cheeky as a brand and establish a sense of loyalty among your current consumers such that they were talking about well beyond that first and second order?
[00:08:42] April Wachtel: I'm not sure I know the answer to that. And part of that is, you know, I think retention is a toughie in general. And also again, because the consumer behaviors have changed so dramatically, just for example, in that period of time, thousands and thousands of people tasted our product and were exposed to the product. I would ask the question back to you. If 90% of those people are not people who would normally make cocktails in the home, Does that negate the benefit of them having become familiar with the brand and the logo? I don't think so, but it's a different question than, like, are they repeat customers? This is something that I try to think about often because, again, our business is evolving at all times of, like, who is truly our consumer? Because we live in an era where I would argue that consumers are generally not loyal, like, crazy loyal to brands. Like, for example, in beverage, yeah, you might have one to four brands that you love, but you probably also have another, like, five or six brands in the hopper that you're like, oh, I like them, or when that other thing's not available, I'm happy to use that thing. And so I think about this a lot, and again, I... I think we're pretty analytical about it. We're still a small team. I don't have, you know, a bunch of people pouring over the data and then just reporting up from the basement for me. But I think that there's so much of brand building that is non-quantifiable, but it still helps. And I think many of these times you don't see like a, oh, my conversion rate jumped by X. I think it's more like, When people continually say, I saw that, I've seen that product before, it's familiar to me. You know, I know that means quality. It's like, do they actually have to be a buyer for that to matter? And I think in many cases, the answer is no.
[00:10:28] Ray Latif: You filled up our cooler upstairs with some Cheeky Lime tonics, and it'll be interesting to see how our folks in the office reach for a Cheeky Lime have a feeling they're going to pick this up and want to know more about it. Talk about where you saw the opportunity for a product like this and why it had to be functional. To be clear, your other products are not functional in the way that we talk about function. They're functional in a very specific, here's how you make a cocktail function. So they're made for refreshment, for taste. They're not made for a specific benefit.
[00:11:02] April Wachtel: Right. So there's a few things going on here. I think the first one is, you know, I've been on my own moderation journey. I love alcohol, but I don't want it every night. But I have a ritual, like the sort of sign for me that like the day is done and all of my, you know, worries are being pushed to the side is like, I'd love to have a sip of something. And I tried a ton of the products on the market, and I just don't drink empty calories. And I don't drink things just for flavor. Like I drink coffee for the caffeine, I'll drink alcohol for the effect. Occasionally I've dabbled with a THC beverage. Or I put like collagen or creatine or something into whatever I drink. And so I couldn't find anything on the market where I was like, this feels like an adult beverage. It feels like something that I would drink as my nightcap. And it tastes great, and it also tastes great mixed, so we didn't have any tonic or any bitter products at all at this time. And I took a, let's call it a commercial light tonic, and I mixed it with soda water, because whenever I order a gin and tonic, that's how I do it, because I can't deal with the sugar. And I mixed those two together. And then I was looking around, I'm like, I still wouldn't drink this because it's just empty calories. Like, how do I make this into something where I'm like, I feel like I'm respecting all of the decisions that I make during the day about fitness and like, you know, watching what I eat, where I can carry that through to like that evening ritual. And so, you know, I looked at collagen and I looked at fiber and this and that. And ultimately, as I kind of started thinking more about the space about poppy and lollipop and Culture Pop and, you know, how they've obviously normalized fiber in people's diets and the fact that You know, over 90% of Americans don't get enough of it. That was kind of the evolution that got us here. And ultimately, in the R&D process for this, we did versions from a SodaStream version to the carbonated, like, tiny little five-pound tank, you know, in the office. And then we got canning equipment. So we did a whole ton of R&D and did a lot of crowdsourcing and things like that. process, but in addition, we also tasted it on its own, tasted it mixed with gin, tasted it like in the R&D process and tasted it with lime to make sure that it could actually behave like a tonic water such that it could be consumed alone or mixed with spirits.
[00:13:13] Ray Latif: So there's a lot of different ways you can go with it. That's all well and good because you can touch more consumers that way. But how does it fit into your overall strategy? How does it fit into what Cheeky Lime today and what it could be in the future?
[00:13:26] April Wachtel: There's so many ways you can slice and dice your mission and your company description or whatever that may be. We're trying to make great products that make people feel great about consuming, entertaining, and connecting. And I don't know if I have a more specific answer to that right now. Many of us have a tendency to want to, like, lock in on one thing. And I'm not saying that we should have, like, a vague reason to exist for the rest of our lives. But I would say that when you look at iconic brands, like, the logo is going to evolve 40 times. The offerings are going to evolve 40 times. There's lots of companies that, you know, start product lines where it's just a line extension or companies that start a product in order to sunset the previous product. So this is something that I can stand behind as a product that I think is incredibly high quality, that people love, it surprises and delights, and that's what our legacy syrups and juices do as well. And so I think that that's the sort of overarching model that we're using right now. And then as our consumer reacts to it or potentially even changes, we're going to find what they believe this to be. And then we can hone that description a bit more succinctly. I very strongly believe you want to make the best product you possibly can, and you want to get it to market as quickly as you possibly can.
[00:14:47] Ray Latif: Why get it to market as quickly as you can?
[00:14:48] April Wachtel: because you have all these ideas about what's right and like what the consumer wants. And like many times you're gonna be completely wrong or like your thesis is just gonna be a little bit off. So you need to get real reactions. So, you know, for the 10 months between when I had the idea for this product, and then when we launched it, I was crowdsourcing, I was like teasing out little pieces, asking people about the sweetener source, you know, grams of sugar that felt palatable, trade-offs between flavor and health benefits, all of these questions on packaging, whatever. And ultimately, we had a really good starting place for when we did this, you know, the first commercial run of this product. And then already, you know, I've done a ton of retail samplings already. We've been self-distributing, I've been physically, you know, like, if I taste a buyer on a product, I have the product in my car, so then I sell them on the intro deal. If you have an innovative product, I think everybody should do it this way, at least for a little bit to gather the data, because it's so helpful. So for example, in these initial placements that I've made, I completely flip-flopped where the positioning in store. Initially, we had said, okay, this is a better for you tonic. We want to be placed right next to the premium tonics and the tonic aisle and the mixer aisle. And then immediately, a lot of the buyers said, okay, but that category doesn't really move. Like, I'd be really happy to pick it up if you want to put in the cold box. And we said, okay. And so then the conversation about relative velocity and category management versus absolute velocity came up. And so ultimately, it's been such a great experience going into these stores Working with the buyers to figure out the places to merchandise, in most cases we get at least two facings. And so we want one that's like positioned for discovery, whether it's in or adjacent to mixers or like in the grab and go section with a non-ALK. And then we're trying to get another one where it's a cold placement in functional or something. It's changing kind of per account that we go into, but already that completely flip-flopped what I put on the sell sheet for where we wanted to be positioned, simply because, at least with these independents, they're like, I don't wanna pick up a product in a category that's very slow moving, but if people will be drinking this on another occasion, and it says on the can, like you can sip it, you can mix it, whatever, they're like, I'm happy to sell it and we'll move a lot of product. We are in the process right now of revising and honing the channel strategy such that it's a very clear placement ask and a very clear use case where like in bars, restaurants, cafes, this is the signature serve or like this is where we think you should use it. And then people can always deviate from that. But it is important to go in and be specific rather than just say, just put it wherever. If you are a startup and you have a new product, I would highly recommend trying to be in the field and really have these conversations and then try to sort of codify the data or at least start taking direction from what the market is telling you to inform your actual formal strategy.
[00:17:53] Ray Latif: Do you think there's a point at which this product could be the primary focus of your business versus your syrups and juices?
[00:18:03] April Wachtel: Oh, a thousand percent.
[00:18:04] Ray Latif: Okay. I think this is a real inflection point for this conversation and then also for your own business strategy, which is that If you're putting the future of the company, or if you think the future of the company is based here in this tonic, how do you make sure that you're giving this the fuel it needs to grow, giving it the amount of time and resources that you think it will need to grow while maintaining what's getting you there in the first place, which is your syrups and juices business?
[00:18:35] April Wachtel: I mean, this is like the hardest thing. I don't think I knew when we launched this, this was basically going to add a second brand. I thought it was going to be like, oh great, it's a line extension. fits into the rest of the things that we do. And indeed, it doesn't because we manufacture almost everything in-house for the syrups and juices. So I run a full-time manufacturing facility. This is co-manufactured, which is more easily scalable for us for a million reasons. But essentially, we have all of the model and the infrastructure from the old product, and we're in a... Basically, I did this SKU rationalization process where we are winding down some of our SKUs from the old product, and we are obviously launching this. We have two other flavors that I'm going to call them coming out next spring. They were supposed to come out this fall. I just don't think it's the right decision right now. And indeed, it's basically like running two completely different but related businesses at the same time. So not recommended if you can avoid it, but I don't think we could have avoided it.
[00:19:41] Ray Latif: It's almost like you're running three businesses, because if you're running your own manufacturing, that's one business. Sales and marketing for the primary lines, that's one business. This tonic line or brand, that's another business. I think this also speaks to intuition as an entrepreneur and going with your gut, no pun intended. But, you know, how much has your intuition informed you about this company and how to market, how to innovate, how to lead? How much does that play into where Cheeky Lime today? And how much did you have to learn about all those different things? How much did you source guidance about all these different things?
[00:20:24] April Wachtel: So intuition absolutely played a huge part in the idea behind why these products matter or like why I should have launched them in the first place. So it was based on, you know, the original syrups and juices was based on my experience as a consumer, as a professional, you know, throwing huge cocktail events and not being able to source the high quality ingredients that we would make from scratch, we would always have to make them like on the nightclub floor or at the hotel, you know, and we never had enough refrigeration. So that informed that product line being shelf stable. And then as well as, you know, when I was a cocktail instructor and all of my students said, I want a better quality cocktail at home, but like none of these ingredients exist. So that informed that. And then, you know, I realized, too, I actually didn't tell the listener what's actually in this tonic, but Cheeky Lime tonic. So it's a we believe it's the world's first functional tonic water with fiber. It's 40 to 70 percent lower sugar than traditional tonics. And when you look at the actual tonic and mixture markets, U.S., it's three point seven billion dollar total addressable market. And the vast majority of products are loaded with sugar. They're filled with artificial flavors, colors, preservatives. And there's very few options and they're all new with functional benefit of any kind. So I think the idea about the consumer need and in this particular case about my personal needs, that came from intuition based on experience. But then, you know, you need to substantiate it with other things as well. So, you know, had I explored this and said, oh, you know, the tonic market's actually really low. Or like, had I said, oh, every product in the mixer space is functional. once I encountered that data, I would have done something different. I probably would have just been like, it's too saturated or like there's not enough demand or whatever. So I think ultimately, like you have to follow your gut when you're starting these things. And then I also would say, and again, I know we're sort of joking about the gut reference, but like probably over the past five years, When things have been wrong or the idea for a product has come up and I feel like in my gut a bad feeling or like not excitement, something that's like a signal that this ain't it, I follow that. And so I think it is very valuable when you start, but also I think in the editing process of like deciding what you're gonna pursue, what you're not gonna pursue, I think it has been essential there because staying focused and not going off on 8 billion tangents and getting involved in other projects is really critically important. And there's all these distractions at all times. So I think it's been really helpful keeping us focused on the things that matter and hopefully offering something where the portfolio makes sense to the consumer.
[00:23:03] Ray Latif: I think that there's so much growth potential for Cheeky Lime general. The brand just screams premium. I remember when we first saw it in the office, I think you either sent samples or brought samples way back in the day. And again, that's one of those things where as soon as you see it, you know, folks like us in the office who are always looking at new products and always focused on consumer brands. That was something we were like, wow, okay, that's cool. That's something I could use. And it's clean, it's beautiful. It speaks to the ingredients that are in the product. I always had an inkling that of all the new mixtures that were sent to BevNET HQ, that Cheeky would be one of the ones that would continue to see for a long time. Thank you. No, I mean, it sucks to say it that I guess if you read between the lines, what I'm saying is that I'm really happy for you, but it sucks because there are so many brands that don't make it. There's so many brands that launch every year and the failure rate here is so high that you're like, okay, here today, gone in a year, here today, gone in a couple of weeks. But there was always something about what you were doing. And I think folks listening and hearing not only feel the sense of, passion and conviction that you have for Cheeky, but the thoughtfulness in your strategy. It's not something where like, okay, let's throw in a wall and see if it sticks. If anyone got that from, oh, let's just go into a retailer or give it to consumers and see what they think. I think that's the opposite of what you're saying. It's like, we've got to go to market and make sure that our thesis.
[00:24:30] April Wachtel: Yes.
[00:24:31] Ray Latif: was proven correct. And if it's not, let's tweak it here or there and make some adjustments here or there. But going to market quickly is, you know, going back to that point, sometimes that's the opposite advice that we hear from entrepreneurs. But I'm glad that you brought it up today. And I'm glad that you brought up the fact that you need to know more, that you need to hear more from the people out there, because that information is always going to advise you as to the next step for your brand.
[00:24:56] April Wachtel: I think when you talk to true entrepreneurs, this is my, in my humble opinion, they're never satisfied with the thing that they have. Like they might be happy with where they are and they might say, great, we've made some great progress, but there's always infinite opportunities to do better. You definitely do not want to put swill into the market. You want to give your absolute best first attempt. But you cannot... In my opinion, I mean, maybe if you're Steve Jobs, your first idea is right. And even with that, I'm sure they went through millions and millions of iterations for every product they ever launched. And again, I think that each time you do it, and we've launched, I don't know, 12, 15, 17 flavors over the years. You know, each time you do it, you get better at doing it and better at understanding where the starting point should be and what the bar for that should be. And like, are you proud enough of it that you're comfortable even asking people for feedback? And mind you, you know, I tasted the first versions of this when we did the SodaStream. I can tell you SodaStream is a wonderful product, but it does not keep the carbonation well. And so the first few samples I gave to like very qualified experienced tasters in the spirits industry. Again, they knew that I was like, I just gassed this up with my soda stream next door. But they were like, okay, the carbonation needs work. And we're like, okay, yeah. And that's, by the way, that's something that we're still sort of working through is like the proper, perfect level of carbonation for this. you can't do this in a vacuum. And I also think that people love being part of the process and love being asked for their opinions as well. And some people are going to judge you on the first version. And, you know, and hopefully if somebody is like intrigued in the journey and like appreciates their opinion being valued, you know, hopefully they'll be, you know, involved in the journey for a lot longer as well. So there's also that sort of like side benefit too.
[00:26:43] Ray Latif: Yeah. Well, you're not satisfied as an entrepreneur. You never should be, but I'm satisfied with our conversation. I'm actually kind of thrilled with our conversation because I feel like we covered quite a bit and I'm just so happy for you, April.
[00:26:55] April Wachtel: Thank you. Thank you so much.
[00:26:57] Ray Latif: Yeah. Thank you so much for being with us on Taste Radio today. Really appreciate it.
[00:27:01] April Wachtel: This was such a blast.
[00:27:02] Ray Latif: Thank you. That brings us to the end of this episode of Taste Radio. Thank you so much for listening. Taste Radio is a production of BevNET.com Incorporated. Our audio engineer for Taste Radio is Joe Cracci. Our technical director is Joshua Pratt, and our video editor is Ryan Galang. Our social marketing manager is Amanda Smerlinski, and our designer is Amanda Huang. Just a reminder, if you like what you hear on Taste Radio, please share the podcast with friends and colleagues. And of course, we would love it if you could review us on the Apple Podcasts app or your listening platform of choice. Check us out on Instagram. Our handle is bevnettasteradio. As always, for questions, comments, ideas for future podcasts, please send us an email to ask at Taste Radio.com. On behalf of the entire Taste Radio team, thank you for listening, and we'll talk to you next time. you
