How It All Started…
Who Am I
Cheers! My name is Cheryl Charming. I began my hospitality career in my teens, working my way up from food server and cocktail server to bartender. With a penchant for travel, I tended bars in tourist destinations such as a Caribbean cruise ship, Walt Disney World, and Bourbon Street. Today I have seventeen published books.
My First Cocktail
“Hi, can I get a Tom Collins?” I asked the bartender. He nodded and started mixing the drink. Disco music filled the room. It was my first time in a bar. The drinking age was eighteen, and I was seventeen.
1960s
I was born in 1960 in the town of Azusa, California. When I was five, my parents moved to my father’s hometown of Little Rock, Arkansas. I was the firstborn of four kids, and my mother says I was a creative thinker, organized, and resourceful.
I grew up in the country, and my parents built two houses with the help of my grandparents. During this time, I enjoyed riding my Big Wheel outdoors, catching lightning bugs in a jar, and going to the drive-in.
1970s
My parents built their third and final house. It’s funny to think about today, but we never locked our doors and had four TV channels (all of which we watched religiously). We also had a 20-foot spiral cord on our harvest gold rotary dial phone, and the car keys lived in the ignition.
I spent my summers playing softball (shortstop or third base). I enjoyed playing records, roller skating, and spending the day at the movie theatre from opening to close. I also caught the travel bug via extended family and youth church trips around the USA, Canada, Mexico, and Jamaica. At 15, my first job was pumping gas at my parent’s gas stations. I learned to check engine fluids, change the oil, and fix a flat tire.
I was 16 when I got my first car. It was a silver 1973 Chevy Camaro with red leather bucket seats and four on the floor. It was a cool car for a sixteen-year-old. With wheels, I was able to take an after-school job as a pizza parlor waitress. My hospitality industry career began.
1980s
After high school, I progressed to serving at John Barleycorn’s Vision. I wish I could locate photos of this Little Rock restaurant because it was my favorite adult restaurant, and I was so happy to be hired. It reminded me of my favorite childhood restaurant Casa Bonita, filled with fun-themed rooms. One night, my manager told me a cocktail waitress upstairs quit and sent me up to cover her shift. I don’t know who that girl was, but her leaving changed my life.
I started my bartending career as a cocktail waitress at a bar named Cabaret. The owner progressed me to service bartender and then head bartender within a year. I loved the fast-paced environment and the opportunity to learn about different types of spirits and cocktails.
While tending bar one day, a patron named Daddy Jack showed me a bar trick with the cherry I placed in his Manhattan. I instantly became fascinated with social amusements such as bar tricks, jokes, magic, toasts, trivia, games, history, etc. I quickly learned I could entertain with bar tricks, and my tips significantly increased. Soon afterward, I quit college. Later, I accepted a job as a bartender on a Caribbean cruise ship. In 1989, I went to tend bar at Walt Disney World and was part of the opening team at Pleasure Island.
The first Disney bar I worked at was the Adventurers Club.
1990s
After a few years, I transferred to the Grand Floridian Beach Resort and Spa. While serving cocktails to the rich and famous, Disney asked me to teach fun bar and magic tricks in their F&B Quest for the Best program. My manager suggested that I should publish a book on the subject, and off I went to research.
After three years and 350 rejection letters, my first book Miss Charming’s Book of Bar Amusements was published in 2000.
In 1998, I dove headfirst into an exciting new world called the World Wide Web. I taught myself HTML and created a one-stop bar and cocktail resource site. That website has been through four revamps.
2000s
The cocktail world began to open up in the millennium’s first decade. Tales of the Cocktail (the world’s largest cocktail festival) and The Museum of the American Cocktail were born, connecting everyone in the cocktail culture. It was the second golden era of the cocktail. A marriage of the kitchen and bar focusing on fresh ingredients to craft gourmet cocktails.
I began tending bar with only two vodkas (Smirnoff & Absolut). Through the years, I’ve watched many products, tools, and skills introduced behind the bar.
In this decade, I studied graphic design, created a fun drink app, made cocktail jewelry, created bartender business cards and resumes, taught seminars, judged competitions, had a cocktail blog, and ended the decade with nine published books.
2010s
In 2010, I moved to New Orleans and rented a balcony apartment in the French Quarter. I accepted a bartender/manager position at The Bombay Club and then moved to the Bourbon O Bar in the Bourbon Orleans Hotel, where I was named Mixologist of the Year by New Orleans Magazine.
2020s
In April 2020, I planned to take off on an adventure I call “Charming Ever After,” but COVID-19 happened. The RV I wanted was in Canada, and they closed the borders. (Most Canadian RVs are insulated, unlike American RVs.) Plus, due to the pandemic, RV prices tripled.
I planned to check off my Wanderlist (Wanderlust + Bucket List = Wanderlist) and make North America my backyard by living and traveling in a small RV or van. I full-time RV’d before in the 1990s, but the highest technology then was a pager and a payphone, lol. This time, the technology would be solar panels, smart devices, and WiFi.
On October 25, 2022, I finally began a new adventure chasing the North American 70-degree weather. I’ll be checking out Wanderful Cocktails along the way while keeping up with this blog at cherylcharming.com.
CHERYL CHARMING BIO and TIMELINE
Cheryl Charming, aka Miss Charming, has been heavily steeped in cocktail and hospitality culture. She began working as a pizza parlor waitress in 1977. She quickly progressed to cocktail waitress, bartender, and head bartender. Cheryl has 17 published bar and cocktail-related books. If you want the best one, choose “The Cocktail Companion.”
With a penchant for travel, Cheryl tended bars in many American states, a cruise ship in the Caribbean, Walt Disney World, and Bourbon Street in New Orleans. While working at WDW, she became the bar trick/bar magic instructor for Disney’s F&B training program, Quest for the Best. She was named “Mixologist of the Year” in 2014 by New Orleans Magazine.
Currently, Cheryl is chasing the 70-degree North American weather in a campervan. Her 18th published book (first self-published) is a twisted tale she made up many years ago when entertaining at children’s parties. It’s called Young MacDonald Had A Farm. Her second self-published book series will be some chill and unwind adult cocktail coloring books filled with history, recipes, and more.
1977
Started in hospitality as a pizza waitress, then progressed to a cocktail waitress.
1980
Promoted to a bartender (drinking age was 18 then). Worked behind bars for 42 years, mostly in tourist destinations.
1985
Began tending bar on a Caribbean cruise ship.
1989
Began tending bar for Walt Disney World for five years, then off and on for another twelve. I opened the Adventures Club at Pleasure Island and later transferred to the Grand Floridian Beach Resort and Spa.
Was also the bar trick/magic trick instructor for Walt Disney World’s Quest for the Best F&B program, teaching servers and bartenders fun little tricks to entertain WDW guests. The classes were taught in the exact location where the first flair bartending competitions were held; Mannequins at Disney’s Pleasure Island.
1998
One of the first female bartenders with a bar-cocktail-related website on the internet. Anistatia Miller was the first in 1995. Also, in 1998, Jill DeGroff designed and maintained a website for her husband, Dale DeGroff, and Mardee Regan had a website with her husband Gary Regan.
2000
First book was published. This book took 350 rejection letters, but it eventually caught the attention of Random House. Seventeen total “publisher” books from 2000-2022.
Returned to college to study graphic design and paid off my student loans by designing and selling bartender business cards and resumes.
2004
Had a small collection, but this year aggressively began researching cocktails in media; film, literature, TV, songs, etc.
2005
First to research and publish the current flair bartending timeline in a book.
2007
Presenter at Tales of the Cocktail. Also, in the years 2008-2010.
Made cocktail jewelry. 1” ice cube ring was the biggest hit.
2008
Put out the first cocktail trivia app called Miss Trivia.
2010
Moved to New Orleans (at age 50), and while there:
- Created the first fresh juice craft bar on Bourbon Street.
- New Orleans Magazine Mixologist of the Year 2015.
- Located Antione Peychaud’s gravesite.
- Deep-dive researched Joseph Santini (Brandy Crusta) and found his great-great grandaughter, who provided the first known photos of Santini (and the inventory sheets of his bar after he died).
- Deep-dive researched Walter Bergeron (Vieux Carré). Found his only son and spoke with him before he died. Found his grandson, and his great-great-grandaughter who provided a copy of the only known photo of Walter.
- The first to deep-dive research the Cosmopolitan Cocktail by locating and communicating with all who claim to be its creator, including their managers, co-workers, chefs, friends, bar owners, etc.
- Located bartender Harry Yee (1957 Blue Hawaii and so many drinks). I Contacted BOLS before Harry turned 100 to see if they would do something special for him. They did. Called and wished Harry a happy birthday for the last five years of his life. He died in 2022.
- Located the creator of the Tequila Sunrise (1972).
- Researched the first infancy stage of bar and cocktail websites (1990s).
- Donated four milk crates of personal bar books (most autographed) and nine years of bar communication logs from The Bourbon O Bar to the Museum of the American cocktail so future bartenders could read them.
2023
Currently chasing the 70-degree North American weather in a camper van, and still tending bar for events and a bar tool company. A real MOVER AND SHAKER, lol. Creating a chill and unwind adult cocktail coloring book.
Throughout the years:
Taught cocktail classes
Judged competitions
USBG member
MOTAC member
Always believed bartending and cocktails should have an element of fun.
Guests having a great time has always been the focus.
Four things Cheryl has always said:
- Drinking adults are like children; They just want to have fun.
- The best bartenders work like swans. On the surface, swans appear cool, calm, and collected, but they paddle like hell underneath.
- I can teach a monkey to tend bar; I cannot teach passion and personality.
- The most important part of a bar is the exit door. That is THE moment guests subconsciously decide if they enjoyed their experience. We all do it. We patronize an establishment and, three steps out the door, have decided if we like the place or not. You can have the best food, but if the service sucks, then nine times out of ten, we will never return or recommend it. A bartender doesn’t need to remember a list of do’s and dont’s. Just do “whatever” it takes for a guest’s third step out the door to be a positive step.