Byron's Babbles

The phrase “the cherry on top” originated in the early 20th century and is used to describe an additional touch that makes something already good even better. Its roots can be traced back to desserts, particularly sundaes or cakes, where a cherry is often placed on top as a final decorative and tasty detail. I wrote about the metaphor of not “cherry topping” that authors and Amazon Web Services (AWS) executives, Phil Le-Brun and Jana Werner, shared in the great book The Octopus Organization in my post, Adding the Perfect Cherry on Top: Final Touches for Ultimate Success. This made me want to do a little research on where the phrase came from.

The phrase “the cherry on top” originated in the early 20th century and is used to describe an additional touch that makes something already good even better. Its roots can be traced back to desserts, particularly sundaes or cakes, where a cherry is often placed on top as a final decorative and tasty detail.

The expression became popular in American English, especially in the 1930s and 1940s, and metaphorically, it refers to a finishing touch that elevates the overall experience. Just like adding a cherry completes a dessert perfectly, saying something is “the cherry on top” implies it’s the perfect final enhancement to an already positive situation.

This all probably dates all the way back to Sunday, April 3, 1892 when a history making “Cherry Sunday” was made at Platt & Colt’s drug store and soda fountain in Ithaca, New York. History tells us that owner Chester Platt came in with the Reverend John Scott after church and asked his soda fountain worker, DeForest Christiance, to get them two dishes of vanilla ice cream. What they got were two dishes of vanilla ice cream covered in cherry syrup with a candied cherry on top. Voilà! The “Cherry Sunday” was invented. It became popular with Cornell students and thus became a menu item. Funny how things like that work. There are varying stories as to how “Sunday” got changed to “sundae.” I leave that for a future study.

For me, this is a lesson in how trying something new can be the tipping point for a new product. It could have just as easily been a total disaster. Le-Brun and Werner’s warning to not to do cherry topping was about not spending time on superfluous things that looked good but did not really add much value. This is good advice, but this has to be balanced with making sure we don’t miss opportunities like soda fountain worker Christiance’s adding of cherry topping and the cherry on the ice cream in the story above. Clearly, that did not take much time or money, but is a lesson in trying something new. But we also need to be aware of the fact that putting the cherry on top with things that are overly superficial or decorative additions appear appealing on the surface can distract from more critical issues.