Prince of Pop
A 25-year-old is bringing the fizz back to the seltzer business

By DOREE LEWAK
Posted: 11:01 PM, March 23, 2013

From the shtetl-icious beverage staple of the old country, to ’60s dime-store pharmacy mainstay, seltzer has been part of the American carbonated beverage landscape for centuries. And it mounted a mean comeback 30 years ago, when Perrier conferred cool status on buying overpriced bottled water.

Even Bruce Willis and James Gandolfini caught the last seltzer wave in the early ’80s. The actors-in-the-making delivered the fizzy stuff while trying to make it big in New York.

After running out of fizz over the past decade or so, seltzer is being given new life by a new company, the Brooklyn Seltzer Boys.

Launched by Alex Gomberg, 25, in September, the BSB is a delivery service that’s equal parts throwback and painfully hipster, making Gomberg the hot new whippersnapper on the seltzer delivery circuit. Make that the only whippersnapper on the circuit and, easily, the youngest seltzer man in the country — there are only a handful left.

Gomberg’s father, Kenny, 55, has run the seltzer plant for 30 years. It’s the last such business remaining in the city. He’s also one of Gomberg’s two partners, along with his uncle Irv.

In his modest office in the seltzer filling station that’s covered in loose parts — tops, washers and springs for his 3,000-strong bottle arsenal, some 50 years old — Gomberg pivots between two laptops and an iPhone. This seltzer man’s wheeling and dealing sure doesn’t look like his great-grandfather Mo’s business. “I don’t think they even had cell phones,” he muses. “Back then, seltzer men knew their customers. They knew the standing orders.”

But Gomberg sounds just as passionate about the trade as his forefathers: He wakes every morning at 4:30 with a mission: “To bring seltzer to the masses. To let people know that we’re still here, that we haven’t gone away.”

Alex, alone, makes the deliveries, with orders split between private homes — Gomberg’s marketing material taps into hipster sensibilities with buzzwords like healthy, sustainable, low-calorie, green — and commercial enterprises, including frou-frou eateries and bars and the Ritz Carlton Hotel.

“The yuppies are curious and want to know what it’s about.” New uptown hot spot and celeb magnet Arlington Club sells Gomberg’s seltzer for $12 a bottle.

Gomberg, who graduated last May from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst with a master’s in higher education, saw room to grow in the family business. His dad had been turning away potential clients who inquired about delivery.

“This was an opportunity I had to grab,” says the younger Gomberg, who claims he’d gladly grab a cold one (seltzer) over a brewski any day.

“Nobody pushed me to do it,” he says, adding that he dreams of opening up an egg cream stand at Barclays Center. His passion speaks for itself. “[Seltzer] was soda,” he says reverentially about its prominent place in American households during its ’50s and ’60s heyday. “We are bottling nostalgia,” he says as he counts his cases that sell for $35 for ten 26-ounce bottles with delivery.

“Customers are always telling me, ‘My grandmother always had a seltzer man!’ I’m just like the milkman,” he says with a shrug, before adding, “But we outlasted the milkman.”
Anne Wermiel/NY Post
Alex Gomberg, 25, co-founder of the Brooklyn Seltzer Boys.

He’s slowly building his client base, typically delivering several dozen cases a week. “It’s getting there,” says Gomberg, whose online marketing and social networking gambit nets him 80 per cent of his customers.

Barry Joseph, 34, a seltzer historian, from Forest Hills, who’s writing a definitive guide to all things seltzer, says he’s heartened by the so-called seltzer renaissance sweeping the country: A spate of posh restaurants are carbonating their own water and Eleven Madison Park has introduced an egg cream course, made with seltzer, to its tasting menu. The bubbles buff thinks the market is strong enough for new blood, as long as it’s not just the bubbes that Gomberg is schmoozing, but their grandkids too: “If his customers are older, he’s going to have a problem, but if they’re diversified — no one ethnicity — that will make it much more sustainable.”

So what is it about seltzer that’s so enduring?

“Good seltzer should hurt,” insists Alex. “You should feel it in the back of your throat — you shouldn’t be able to gulp it down. That tingly feeling is the bite.”

And no Passover seder is complete without the bubbly. “My mom always said the secret to good matzoh balls in seltzer — it makes them fluff,” Alex says. “The bubbles give it the lightness.”

With 60 pounds of pressure in each bottle, Gomberg regards the triple-filtered, CO2-infused carbonated drink in green, blue and clear glass bottles (with only metal caps) as works of art: “I’m a purist — metal’s the only way to do it; [they] look classier than the colored plastic ones.”

Gomberg has amassed an impressive personal vintage bottle collection from the world over, discussing antique siphons with the same excitement people have sharing a priceless baseball card collection.

Gomberg acquired 1,000 newly spruced-up bottles — a mix of American-made siphons from a mold and European-made ones in the thicker hand-blown tradition — to make up the 70-pound cases he routinely lugs three days a week, along a route that covers most of the boroughs.

And even though everyone from bubbes to their granddaughters would kill to take a spin with Alex in his truck, it’s too late — he’s getting married this spring, and he’s in luck: his future in-laws love seltzer. “I deliver it to her parents in New Jersey. I introduced them to old-fashioned seltzer. I said, ‘With me, you get seltzer for life.’ ”

So does he ever feel like he’s missing out on the glamorous banker and lawyer lifestyle of his friends? “Are you kidding? This is so unique — there’s no one else who does this! I feel proud to carry on this tradition,” he says before adding, “and it’s fun to squirt the bottles. That never gets old.”

Last week I had a top of the fold, front page article in the Jewish Week. That was very nice. It is an interview with Walter Backerman, seltzerman extraordinaire. As if that were not enough, there is a second piece from me interviewing Alex Gomberg, the newest and youngest seltzerman in the country. Finally, as a blast from the past, I will include a fantastic NPR seltzer piece I came across from the 70s.

Time in a Bottle: Meet Walter Backerman, the third generation in a dynasty of ‘seltzer men,’ and one of the last of a breed. [link]

21s-Century Seltzer Man: A young Brooklynite with a vintage business.[link]

Marty – the Seltzer Man - NPR, 1979

Here is a radio piece on the BBC from last March. Start at 18:30.

From July 5- July 10, 2007, a Japanese TV crew followed Walter for a piece that ran on July 28, 2007. Walter, who gave me this video and asked me to share it online, says it was viewed by 10 million people.

I have HOURS of interview now to transcribe but, in the meantime, below are some photos and video from the day:

Some photos from the day.

A video of a delivery.

A video of his bottle collection.

But, in any case, isn't this just so cool! It looks like it is made of a thick glass, the color of the average green seltzer siphon.

about canada dry seltzer - they now call it canada dry sparkling seltzer water. at least they do here in minnesota. since sparkling water and seltzer water are different (i thought) it is confusing. what is canada dry seltzer called in NYC?? I grew up in Brooklyn and had seltzer delivery via H. Myerowitz. my recall is that the seltzer man disappeared along with the milk man about 1969. I understand seltzer delivery with glass siphon bottles is making a comeback. Here in the minneapolis area, it has been a struggle getting seltzer tho you can find just about any carbonated water from run of the mill club soda to sparkling water to european import mineral waters. Finally a local supermrket started carerying Boylan seltzer. Then a local supermarket chain started carrying a house brand seltzer. Canada Dry sparkling seltzer water is available flavored only. and again, the sparkling and seltzer refs confuse me. I also know of Schweppes and Polar seltzer brands but not out here. real seltzer has a crisper taste-- no sodium-- and a different carbonation. thank you

Austrian Postcard from end of the 19th century

One of many examples of unusual siphon heads, the "soul of the siphon"

‎"Syphon-head beaks in the shape of eagle of snake he [sic] are exciting and interesting particularly if we know: they were developed to prevent that the consumer could not put the bottle into his mouth, and abandoned women could not use them for other purposes."

‎"The 'shaking hands' of the tavenkeepers' soda factory in Szeged is a more conciliatory message and can be understood as the symbol of composure, compromise, and cooperation."

Austrian Postcard from end of the 19th century

"When it was still a fun" [sic]

"When summer has arrived"

One of many beautiful and exotic siphons in the book

Here is some information I obtain by emailing someone who had posed these fantastic 360 degree photos of the exhibit:

Hi, I am sending the informations and the pictures of the Soda Museum of Szeged. The Soda Museum of Szeged One attraction of the water tower (called Old Lady) of the Saint Stephen square in Szeged is the Water Museum placed on the ground floor in the tower. István Bánffi collected its pieces. In the permanent exhibition the audience can get to know the story of the soda, from Ányos Jedlik’s invention to novadays.

István Bánffi’s father – who was a sodamaker, either – kept the ornamental soda bottles, and he started to collect the relics in planned form approximately 15 years ago. In the exibithion, there are 1200 soda bottles and 30 kind of sodamaking machines, just the most beautiful ones. There are also commercials, plaquets, postcards and specifications of soda water making.

Panoramas:

http://www.360cities.net/search/soda-szeged
Best regards:
Illés Tibor

I later learned that this was a traveling exhibit that, after touring the country, found a home in Szeged.

Soon after a book was published based on the collection - "Soda water, a cult drink in Hungary" - which was mailed to be by it's gracious author Imre Kiss.

When I got home today I found waiting for me a package with this postage attached:

Written in Hungarian alongside an English translation, with many photos, it is just fantastic. I am only a few pages in, but here are a few details:

"Dear Readers, when reading this book, please, think of the colleagues of ours who were purposed to supply the buyers with soda water by working hard on icy or sultry days, be it winter or summer time, who survived two works wars, economic crises, revolutions, the horrible time of nationalism and the years of socialism."

"Soda water symbolizes sparkling life, activity and dynamic force and there, deep in our minds, it works like a volcano to erupt, and that is why we like this drink. Knowing the maxim that says 'we get identical to what we eat,' we come to love it easily because we ourselves want to be something like that."

I learned of this from the Seltzer Sisters, who provided all of the siphons for the shoot, which I am currently writing about for the book.

For Walter Backerman, seltzer is more than a drink. It is the embodiment of his family.

Standing in the kitchen of his Parkside Hills home in New York, Walter Backerman holds a picture of his father and grandfather.

As a third generation seltzer man, he follows parts of the same cobblestone route his grandfather began in 1920s Manhattan.

Walter maintains a collection of more than seven thousand antique bottles that he circulates to his customers. Many bear the family name, a tribute to his father and his grandfather before him.

Now, after 90 years of the Backermans being in the business, Walter knows all too well that he may be the last of the family's seltzer men. Watch the video below to meet Walter and find out more about what his family's seltzer legacy means to him.

For some reason, the good folks at Polar Seltzer release some rather strange flavors to beat the heat. Last winter, as you might recall, we saw Eggnog, Candy Cane, Pumpkin Spice and Granny Smith Apple. This summer we are looking at: Minto Mojito, Ginger Lemonade, Pineapple Passionfruit, Pina Colada and Orange Mango.

The Huffington Post takes one for the team and reviews them all.

Some highlights from the review:
- this flavor had an overwhelming aroma of sunscreen that was "a little scary."
- It "tastes how it smells, not a compliment," said one.
- Several noted a "mouthwash" and "toothpaste" taste that ruined the drinking experience.

Read them all here.

Construction of a custom delivery cart
Repairs to a one-of-a kind antique filling machine
Filtration equipment
Obtaining more vintage bottles

On Feb 12th, he not only hit that goal but surpassed it, raising $3,910.

Congratulations to Webster and check out the amazing video he put together to promote the campaign and describe a seltzer bike:

And the original campaign here:

Read about Ryan Pinnell in Florida, in "Seltzer home deliveries beginning to bubble," and John Seekings in Pittsburg, in "Pittsburgh Seltzer Works Offers Fresh Summer Fizz from Swissvale."

A sign of things to come, or just the approach of Passover?

Learn more about places to observe the day, and more about the egg cream, here.