The Last Seltzer Works

‘Good Seltzer Should Hurt’

**VIDEO**

Skippy Massey
Humboldt Sentinel

It’s the end of the era.

In the early 1900s, thousands of seltzer deliverymen criss-crossed the nation, schlepping heavy glass bottles full of fizzy water to the doorsteps of millions of thirsty customers.

Today, with only a handful of seltzer works left in the country, the siphon machines at Gomberg Seltzer Works don’t turn like they used to.  Most of the old customers have passed on.  Or moved to Florida.  At one time there were 500 seltzer bottlers in NYC alone.

In Jessica Edwards’ short documentary film, Seltzer Works, the last bottler in Brooklyn fends off the supermarket seltzer take-over and honors this simple drink’s place in history.  And it’s more of a place than Hollywood’s iconic cream pie and seltzer water fights captured on celluloid.  Seltzer water over ice was the refreshing uptown drink for those hot humid summer days in the City.

For third-generation bottler Kenny Gomberg of Canarsie, Brooklyn, the charm of authentic bottled seltzer is both the throat-biting tingle a pressurized glass bottle creates, and the memories it stirs up.

Since his grandfather opened the seltzer factory in 1953, the seltzer delivery business has dropped off significantly due to grocery shelves stocked with big-brand fizzy water in plastic bottles and busy schedules that are out of sync with home delivery.

Indeed, Gomberg’s small operation is the only seltzer factory left in New York City and one of the few original ones left in the country.

A gritty old machine there pumps its effervescent, bubbly elixir into Gomberg’s thick glass bottles, made in Czechoslovakia in the 1930s, hand-blown and hand-etched, with pewter siphon tops.

“You drop one of these, it will explode,” he said, holding one up.  “Inside here is triple-filtered New York City water with 80 pounds of carbonic pressure.”

He jams wooden shims between the 10 rattling bottles in their beat-up wooden cases, which he sells for $31.  He has about 150 customers.

Still, he’s able to carve out a living serving up his crisp beverage – and some nostalgia – to elderly customers, and to a younger generation that prizes all things archaic and artisanal.

Those were the days, my friend.  And we  thought they would never end.