January 14, 2021 • 25 mins
Long before Amazon could bring you a case of Topo Chico, seltzer delivery people were doing just that. Once as common as a Prime truck, there are just a few left. Matt and Helen discuss the ups and downs of seltzer delivery with Alex Gomberg of Brooklyn Seltzer Boys and discover the joy of a NYC Egg Cream Soda.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
I'm Matt and I'm Helen, and this is job Slete.
Today we're talking about the Seltzer man. What he rents
bottles to clowns. Of course, if there is one thing
(00:20):
has taught us is that we can pretty much order
anything online and have it delivered right to our front door.
Groceries delivered, phone charger delivered, Printer Inc. Delivered a new car. Yes,
that can be delivered too. But who delivers all this stuff? Well,
(00:42):
an army of delivery drivers. Odds are we won't ever
see a person at our door with a package that
we've seen before. It's almost always someone different. This is
one big reason why the seltzer Man or the milkman
was so shoal that relationship they had with their customers.
(01:04):
So grab a Seltzer or a milk or or heck
even an egg cream or better yet, have them delivered
as today we look at the seltzer Man and the Milkman.
I gotta say that that I am a like a
true Seltzer addict. And there was a time I have
(01:25):
a soda stream, so I I don't need things delivered.
Although there was a moment like a month and a
half where my soda stream was out of gas, and
it's a real addiction. Like I would go crawling out
to the twenty four hour grocery near my house at
like one o'clock in the morning meeting a Seltzer. So
(01:47):
the idea that I could call some dude to bring
Seltzer to my house sounds perfect. I am the same
way with I'm not a Seltzer fan necessarily, but but
I I definitely am a cold brew person, and I
(02:07):
I just wish that they delivered cold brew to my
front door like they do Seltzer and milk. I have
to actually drive to my local coffee shop to turn
in my jug, exchange my jug for a new coffee.
You go, just go to the cold brew place and
exchange jug. Ma, you're so boogie. Look, I don't mess around, Okay,
(02:28):
you gotta get I'm just I'm just talking about carbonated water,
and you're like, no, I need my code brew from
a jug that's recycled. I mean, you know, we're going
to find out this episode that there's a that's a
part of the thing is like that it tastes so
much better, you know, in a glass bottle. Plus you
feel good because you know it's environmentally more friendly to
(02:50):
reuse glass bottles. So today we do have seltzer delivery
folks traditionally called a seltzer man because you know, this
is for the feminism, yeah, and milkman before women could
have jobs. But the tradition does continue mostly with hipsters today.
I would say, but so you can get seltzer delivered
(03:13):
to your house today in you can what tell me everything?
And where do I sign? So? My name's Alex Gomberg.
I am the vice president of Brooklyn Seltzer Boys, which
is a delivery company of Gomberg Seltzer Works. Our family
got into the business in in the nineteen fifties. My
grant grandfather, Moe Gomberg, was a seltzerman and he created
(03:37):
Gomberg Seltzer Works. And now today this is the last
one in all of New York, one of only three
left in the entire country. Wow. So this is an
old timey job because his grandfather did it back in
the day as a seltzer man, and now his grandson
is continuing the tradition and it's become like a hipster
(03:59):
throwback end. Yeah, I mean it used to be a
more working class thing, you know where when his grandfather
started the business. That was still a very busy time
for seltzer men. I would say the heyday of it
was like nineteen twenties to nineteen forties. Back then it
was still very common. You know, maybe you probably know
(04:20):
more about milkman than yeah, like I have. I think
there's a milk milkman is like there's a stereotype of
like a dude in a white outfit, in a white
cap and he and he, like you know, walks up
to your house with these clanging bottles fill of milk drugs,
but as Seltzerman. I actually I can't even picture it
because I don't know anything about it, and I don't
(04:40):
think that it's like in popular it's been depicted in
popular culture at all. So Alex's great grandfather started the business,
and when his business started, it was a much different time.
Seltzer was delivered all over the place and there was
lots of competition. It wasn't like today. So we fill
(05:01):
old fashioned siphon bottles for you know, now just a
few seltzerman but back in the day there were many,
many of them, and very similar to the milk delivery.
You would get milk delivered to your house. That's what
the Seltzerman does. Seltzerman wake up very very early in
the morning, ridiculous hours, three four o'clock in the morning.
They wanted to make sure that they got to their
(05:22):
customers first. And with parking and everything there, with these
trucks which are so big, you know, bottles hanging all
over the place. I'd love for you to see what
these trucks look like, because they were just so cool.
They were parking on a city block and they could
spend almost an entire day just delivering to that one block.
They would literally have neighbors next to each other and
(05:45):
apartment buildings where they would have to go up multiple
levels of stairs. These cases are sixty pounds. It's no joke.
We deliver you a fresh case of tend bottles. When
the bottles are empty, we go to your house, we
pick up the empties, and we drop off a fresh case.
Could be you know, a hundred cases in a day
for one truck. That's a lot fifty cents a case.
(06:05):
Back then they would deliver the Seltzer water um and
also foxes. You bet syrup, Foxes, you bet syrup? You
bet you know what that is? Right? No, I didn't either.
I have never heard of foxes you bet syrup, Like,
what what kind of syrup are we talking? Is it
(06:26):
a maple syrup? I think it's a kind of chocolate
syrup that's special for Actually, yeah, Alice is going to
explain this. This drink called an egg cream for those
that don't know what a fox you bet syrup is
used for as an egg cream, which is a very
traditional New York City Brooklyn beverage. It's chocolate milk and seltzer.
(06:48):
Sound it might sound funny, but it tastes. It tastes
great chocolate milk and seltzer. I'm not gonna lie on
first blush. Sounds disgusting, sounds absolutely vile, and maybe it
has something to do with my lactose intolerance. And so
he kind of already lost me at chocolate milk. I mean,
(07:10):
I understand, I love chocolate milk. I love the taste
of it. But if I was drinking a chocolate milk
right now, Matt, I'm not gonna lie, it would be
it would be a fart fest. You don't happen to
have some lactose free milk around, do you. Well, As
a matter of fact, I do and chocolate syrup. I do,
and Seltzer I do? Should we go make a funny
(07:34):
what's called the funny foxy a foxy funny syrup? What's
it called? I already forgot, I know, I know it's
it's Mr Fox's syrupy syrup. Okay, you don't have to
have the foxes, you bet syrup. You can just have
any kind of chocolate or vanilla syrup laying around, you know.
(07:57):
So should we take a break right now while I
go make up my own version of a you betcha
foxy chocolate e fizzy water thing. You're not gonna believe this,
but I literally just had my egg cream delivered to me.
My wife just brought this down. No, yeah, you had.
(08:20):
You had an egg cream delivered to your face right
now by your wife. This is a delivery episode, so
it was appropriate. You know what, I need to get
me a wife, because you know it's the only person
in the house right now other than me is Dodger,
my dog. And Dodger is not making me no egg
cream or or foxes or you bet you nothing. Well,
(08:40):
we'll take a break. I'll wait for you. Go ahead.
We are talking. Seltzer and drinking egg creams. I'm back,
so I have This is how junkie my life is.
(09:02):
Right now. I have an old spaghetti jar oat milk
because I am lactose intolerant, and I put chocolate syrup
in there, and I don't have any clean spoons. So
this is a butter knife. This smell is really good.
Mine smells really good. Listen to this is the best
sound on earth. Yeah, that's how you know it's good.
(09:25):
So what do I do? I just pour the Seltzer
into this chocolate milk. Yes, okay, here we go. Ready.
This is the first time, by the way, in case
the audience didn't realize this by this point that Helen
and I have actually tried egg cream before. Okay, here
we go. Ready, cheers, clink clink, Okay, Wow, that surprisingly good.
(09:47):
That's actually really good. I'm not gonna lie. I thought
it was gonna be gross. The Seltzer does make the difference.
I mean, it's delicious because it's almost like a little
salty and sweet because the sir has a little bit
of that like mineral quality. If you get it from
the Brooklyn Seltzer. Boys, you're talking like much higher quality
(10:08):
than something you'd buy it from the grocery store. So
I'll let Alex explain why it tastes so much better.
So this Seltzer that we have is it is in
its original form. This is the way Seltzer started. It's
New York City tap order that we take and then
triple filter it. And basically what that does is it
takes out any microsolids, taste odors in the already clean
(10:29):
New York City tap order, and then we add C
O two inside of a carbonator. They mix and turned
together to form Seltzer. Once in the carbonator, we injected
into these old fashioned siphon bottles. The bottles were handblown.
They have to be very thick, heavy glass so that
they don't explode inside our machine or if somebody drops them.
(10:52):
They get put in a wood box and then you
could just dispense the Seltzer inside of a glass. It's
it's ready to go. That is the way it's. It
was a ridge only made. I mean, I gotta say,
you know, it's interesting because our show is called job Slete,
but can we bring this job back? Because as someone
who loves Seltzer, this guy sounds awesome, Like I would
(11:16):
love to have this high quality trigger mechanized seltzer delivered
to my house. Yeah. I think the other part of
this is you noticed how he was talking about the
glass bottles being so special. Um, he actually has a
funny little side story about who is interested in those bottles.
The bottles are mostly handblown in Czechoslovakia and you know,
(11:39):
the early nineteen thirties forties, and they're all imprinted with
different engravings on them and many different shades of blues
and greens. So it's a lot of history to these bottles,
and we reuse them over and over those who are
not used to our bottles. And I have to say,
don't you know the bottles of Larry and Curly? You
(11:59):
know they're squirting each other in the face and laughing.
And do rent bottles to clowns for parties and stuff?
What he rents bottles and clowns? Of course, wait, because
it's like a stereotype that a clown like sprays himself
in the face with with a bottle. Going back to
(12:20):
the Three Stooges, I think like the most impressive part
to me is it how long they last. I mean,
these are the same bottles for generations. They've been using
and it's the same thing with with milkman too. Doing
research for this episode, I came across some a couple
British milkmen and very similar story as the Brooklyn Seltzer boys,
(12:43):
like it was a family tradition. They had the same
bottles for fifty sixty years and it's it's amazing and
that was the biggest appeals that the milkman or Seltzerman
they come with with the Seltzer, the milk they collect
the old bottles, you know, and this process just repeats
(13:04):
over and over, and it's it's so much more ecological
and same bottles, like you said, since the twenties he's saying, right,
like they were handblown in Czechoslovakia, and then you know,
there's nothing going into the waste dream whereas you know,
I love that Topo Chico, but every time I buy
a glass bottle of it, it's like, well, I guess
I'm tossing this bottle in the recycling and hoping it
(13:27):
gets recycled. Another interesting part of the process is the
trust that is developed and the relationship between the the
person who delivers the seltzer or the milk and the customer.
You know, they come so many times a month, and
it's the same person. It's not like Amazon, where it's
(13:48):
a different person every single time, and so much that
they almost sort of, like the way Alex described it
was like their extended family. It's like the postal service,
like the mail delivery person, who is the same person
every day, and you see him and you're like hey,
you know when you wave and you say hi, and
like when it was really hot this past week, it's like, oh,
(14:09):
do you want a soda? Do you want a nice water?
Because you just become familiar with this person. I can't
believe I didn't even think of that analogy. Yeah, that's
that's a perfect analogy. So there's that next clip where
Alex talks about that they're part of the family, both
the family family. The Seltzerman were basically an extension of
the family back in the day because they were coming
(14:31):
a lot more often. There is a big trust factor
also because we are coming, you know, right to their house.
Back in the day, Seltzerman they would deliver many things.
They would deliver the Seltzer, they would deliver soda, beer, candy,
and and all sorts of things. They were already in
your house and some of the Seltzerman, some of the
old school guys. They would go to stores and pick
(14:53):
up paper towels and toilet paper and and just all
sorts of just household items that you would need. So
it's just funny that the Seltzerman was kind of like
the first Amazon. That's so charming because it was like,
you know, if you knew your Seltzerman, you're like, hey,
joey um out of toilet paper? Can you go? You know,
when you swing by tomorrow, can you pick me up
some like that's so cute. It was such an institution,
(15:16):
Like it was so common that in some of the
bigger cities they even had apartments where they had two
separate little doors. They're like cat or dog doors, but
they were for the jugs, you know, either whether it
be Seltzer or milk or paper towels as he just said,
like you know, and one so one door would be
for the new stuff that was delivered, and then the
(15:39):
other door they would put out there the used bottles
that they had. So they were like two little doggie doors,
but they were for used or new Seltzer. That's so cute.
There's there's I believe, like maybe Chicago New York. You
can still find some old apartments that still have that feature.
I'm sure most of them are gone by this point.
(16:00):
But yeah, so it sounds like the Seltzerman were like
so sweet, like these sweet kind people that would just
bring you seltzer and bring you toilet paper if you
needed and you'd be like, all right, thanks, but see
you tomorrow. Well, and you know, if anything, you would
think that, well, if there's competition for the Seltzerman, it's
the Milkman. Wouldn't they be rivals? But apparently there's a
(16:24):
different rivalry that I didn't expect. No, not not between
Milkman and Seltzerman. Definitely, not that I'm aware, but definitely
between Seltzerman Seltzerman was sometimes they were evil. They would
you know, they would want the customer. So when somebody
moves into town, you'd get like four Seltzerman rushing in
to say, hey, do you do you need a deliver guy? Uh.
(16:46):
Seltzerman would steal bottles from you know, they were delivering
into building and another Seltzerman was in that area. They
would take their bottles and and and scratch off their
label and put their label on or something like that.
If bottle wasn't working well. It was very easy to
just switch a bottle from your stock to somebody else's
stock and now give the broken bottle to the other person.
(17:09):
Ounce they're probably it was definitely rivalry between the Seltzerman.
What it's like Seltzer sabotage. It would have made a
great reality TV show, you know, to see some of
these guys, the War of the Seltzerman. That's so crazy.
They just seem like, I mean, what is more innocent
(17:29):
than Seltzer? And these guys are like, I'll cut you.
You take my Seltzer customer, I'll caught you. I like
how he did say, like some of them were evil. Man,
that's so crazy. So they're stealing each other's bottles and
they're swapping out bad bottle. Wow, this is like there's
there's a lot more intrigue than I thought. Mat Do
(18:06):
you know if this was like where this was in
relation to the popularity of Coca Cola or other soft drinks,
like were they could they flavor the Seltzer and make
Coca Cola for you or like was coca thing back
then with Seltzer the only carbonated beverage you could get. Well,
(18:28):
Coca Cola has been around since the eighteen eighties, but
they were not quite at the point where they had
taken over the world yet with distributions, so you know,
they were still competing, and so when people had Seltzer delivered,
it was often just that it wasn't but Coca Cola
(18:48):
also delivered to homes. You know, they had their own
delivery system, just like wow, See that makes sense to
me because I think everyone loves a little harbonated beverage, right,
Like we're all addicted. There's something inherently like so refreshing
about a carbonated beverage. But if coke or sprite isn't
(19:08):
widely available, then you're like, oh, I need something carbonated,
Like the Seltzer is the widely available thing, So I
can see why that would be hugely popular, especially if
it's getting delivered directly to your house. Definitely. And then
was the was the hey you foxy chocolate eat syrup.
(19:28):
I'm sorry, I can't never remember. Was that the only
kind of syrup that you could get? Foxes? You bet
was the name of that, But no, they later they
later began to use vanilla and other flavors. I believe
when they made their egg cream. Don't you think the
egg cream was like a conspiracy between the Seltzer Man
(19:54):
and the milkman. They're like, hey, you know how we
could sell more on this stuff is if we come
by I joined forces and then add a delicious syrup
to the Seltzer milk combo and people get get people
hooked on that, and we'll sell more of both of
our products. Don't you think that's entirely possible? I mean,
I'm not going to put it past them. I mean,
(20:16):
I mean, if I was a Seltzerman and you were
a milkman, Matt, I'd be like, hey, bro, come here.
I mean, it wouldn't be that could be, but you
know what I mean, I'd be like, Well, like Alex said,
the true rivalry was between the Seltzer men. A big
reason why this business kind of uh fizzled out because
(20:36):
people weren't home anymore to take deliveries. You know, the
supermarkets carried a lot more items, and it was very
easy to go to a supermarket and have a much
bigger selection of beverages. I want one of these, one
of these, one of these. So people kind of got
away from this home delivery thing and started going to supermarkets.
I guess it's just made life for a Seltzerman a
(20:56):
little bit difficult just because the volume just decreased. But
it is interesting now you fought fast forward to today.
Now everybody, whether they're working or not working, wants things
delivered to their house. Yeah. I mean if the Brooklyn
Seltzer boys delivered to Los Angeles, I would be like,
where do I sign signing up right now? Because I
(21:18):
love Seltzer and I just love the the concept of it.
But yeah, he's absolutely right. It's like it probably the
demise of it was because I was like, well, now
I have a car and there's a supermarket and that's exciting,
and I have a refrigerator and I can fill it.
And now it's like we've gone full circle and we're like,
I do not want to get in the car. I
(21:39):
do not want to go to the grocery store, like
I want things delivered directly to me. And we have
these refrigerated packaging now and you can get pretty much
like even frozen foods delivered to your house. Yeah, that's
kind of this last clip. He kind of says exactly
what you said. So it used to be there to
(22:00):
be maybe ten Seltzerman on one block, whereas today it's
much more spread out. The Seltzerman had hundreds of customers
in a very small area. Today we don't have that.
It's not really a huge business. So so now there's
Brooklyn Seltzer and just you know, three or four other
(22:22):
Seltzerman doing this full time. We do the same thing today,
although a lot of things are tougher. Parking is more
of an issue, traffic is more of an issue, the
distance between customers is more of an issue. So we're
dealing with things that they didn't have to deal with
back then. But we are doing much less volume than
they did. I wish, I wish the volume was the same.
(22:44):
I mean, if you live in Manhattan, I mean, if
you live in New York City, sign up for the
Brooklyn Seltzer Boys because this sounds amazing and I wish
I could. Is there is there a Los Angeles Seltzer
Boys or or in l A Seltzer Gals that I
can sign up for, because I would. I think there
will be after this episode, I really do. I think
this is an opportunity. And this almost sounds like an infomercial,
(23:04):
but I mean, I mean, it sounds amazing, Like I
would love that, and I want to see a handblown
checklist Slovakian bottle from well. I mean, you know, maybe
you can't be too picky with that, is it? So
this isn't quite jobslete, it's it's almost job sleet. But
maybe we can resuscitate it. And this is a trend
(23:27):
that's worldwide. I mean this, maybe this job isn't so
jobsolete at all because I'm thinking twenty years down the road.
I mean, do you really think that this momentum is
gonna that we've seen from the past year or two
is going to reverse? No, I'm never leaving my house
ever again, I'm not either. This is a twist ending folks. Hey,
(23:59):
you can find Alex Gomberg delivering Seltzer around New York
and at their website Brooklyn Seltzer Boys dot com. And
if you do get the seltzer from Alex Gomberg and
Brooklyn Seltzer Boys, tell us about it on Twitter. We
have a Twitter handle now, Yeah, it's at job sleet
pod on Twitter. Tweet at us let us know how
(24:21):
delicious the Brooklyn Seltzer Boys uh Seltzer is and also
tweeted us if you think that I'm totally right or
totally wrong by saying Topo Chico is the best bottled
Seltzer that you can buy out there. I know somebody's
gonna want to fight me or support me, and you
can do that at job Sleep Pod on Twitter. Job
(24:41):
Sleet is produced for I Heart Radio by Zealots manufacturing
hand Forge Podcast for You. It's hosted by us Helen
Hong That's Me and Matt beat That's Me. The show
was conceived and produced by Anthony Sevini, Jason Elliott, and
Steve Zamrki. Our editor is Tommy Nichol, Our researcher is
(25:01):
Amelia Paulka, our production coordinator is Angie Hymes, and theme
music is by the mysterious Breakmaster Cylinder. Special thanks to
our I Heart Radio team led by Nikki Etre, Katrina Norvell,
Ali Cantor, Mangesh Hatti, Kador, Will Pearson, Connell Burne and
Bob Pittman
I'm Matt and I'm Helen, and this is job Slete.
Today we're talking about the Seltzer man. What he rents
bottles to clowns. Of course, if there is one thing
(00:20):
has taught us is that we can pretty much order
anything online and have it delivered right to our front door.
Groceries delivered, phone charger delivered, Printer Inc. Delivered a new car. Yes,
that can be delivered too. But who delivers all this stuff? Well,
(00:42):
an army of delivery drivers. Odds are we won't ever
see a person at our door with a package that
we've seen before. It's almost always someone different. This is
one big reason why the seltzer Man or the milkman
was so shoal that relationship they had with their customers.
(01:04):
So grab a Seltzer or a milk or or heck
even an egg cream or better yet, have them delivered
as today we look at the seltzer Man and the Milkman.
I gotta say that that I am a like a
true Seltzer addict. And there was a time I have
(01:25):
a soda stream, so I I don't need things delivered.
Although there was a moment like a month and a
half where my soda stream was out of gas, and
it's a real addiction. Like I would go crawling out
to the twenty four hour grocery near my house at
like one o'clock in the morning meeting a Seltzer. So
(01:47):
the idea that I could call some dude to bring
Seltzer to my house sounds perfect. I am the same
way with I'm not a Seltzer fan necessarily, but but
I I definitely am a cold brew person, and I
(02:07):
I just wish that they delivered cold brew to my
front door like they do Seltzer and milk. I have
to actually drive to my local coffee shop to turn
in my jug, exchange my jug for a new coffee.
You go, just go to the cold brew place and
exchange jug. Ma, you're so boogie. Look, I don't mess around, Okay,
(02:28):
you gotta get I'm just I'm just talking about carbonated water,
and you're like, no, I need my code brew from
a jug that's recycled. I mean, you know, we're going
to find out this episode that there's a that's a
part of the thing is like that it tastes so
much better, you know, in a glass bottle. Plus you
feel good because you know it's environmentally more friendly to
(02:50):
reuse glass bottles. So today we do have seltzer delivery
folks traditionally called a seltzer man because you know, this
is for the feminism, yeah, and milkman before women could
have jobs. But the tradition does continue mostly with hipsters today.
I would say, but so you can get seltzer delivered
(03:13):
to your house today in you can what tell me everything?
And where do I sign? So? My name's Alex Gomberg.
I am the vice president of Brooklyn Seltzer Boys, which
is a delivery company of Gomberg Seltzer Works. Our family
got into the business in in the nineteen fifties. My
grant grandfather, Moe Gomberg, was a seltzerman and he created
(03:37):
Gomberg Seltzer Works. And now today this is the last
one in all of New York, one of only three
left in the entire country. Wow. So this is an
old timey job because his grandfather did it back in
the day as a seltzer man, and now his grandson
is continuing the tradition and it's become like a hipster
(03:59):
throwback end. Yeah, I mean it used to be a
more working class thing, you know where when his grandfather
started the business. That was still a very busy time
for seltzer men. I would say the heyday of it
was like nineteen twenties to nineteen forties. Back then it
was still very common. You know, maybe you probably know
(04:20):
more about milkman than yeah, like I have. I think
there's a milk milkman is like there's a stereotype of
like a dude in a white outfit, in a white
cap and he and he, like you know, walks up
to your house with these clanging bottles fill of milk drugs,
but as Seltzerman. I actually I can't even picture it
because I don't know anything about it, and I don't
(04:40):
think that it's like in popular it's been depicted in
popular culture at all. So Alex's great grandfather started the business,
and when his business started, it was a much different time.
Seltzer was delivered all over the place and there was
lots of competition. It wasn't like today. So we fill
(05:01):
old fashioned siphon bottles for you know, now just a
few seltzerman but back in the day there were many,
many of them, and very similar to the milk delivery.
You would get milk delivered to your house. That's what
the Seltzerman does. Seltzerman wake up very very early in
the morning, ridiculous hours, three four o'clock in the morning.
They wanted to make sure that they got to their
(05:22):
customers first. And with parking and everything there, with these
trucks which are so big, you know, bottles hanging all
over the place. I'd love for you to see what
these trucks look like, because they were just so cool.
They were parking on a city block and they could
spend almost an entire day just delivering to that one block.
They would literally have neighbors next to each other and
(05:45):
apartment buildings where they would have to go up multiple
levels of stairs. These cases are sixty pounds. It's no joke.
We deliver you a fresh case of tend bottles. When
the bottles are empty, we go to your house, we
pick up the empties, and we drop off a fresh case.
Could be you know, a hundred cases in a day
for one truck. That's a lot fifty cents a case.
(06:05):
Back then they would deliver the Seltzer water um and
also foxes. You bet syrup, Foxes, you bet syrup? You
bet you know what that is? Right? No, I didn't either.
I have never heard of foxes you bet syrup, Like,
what what kind of syrup are we talking? Is it
(06:26):
a maple syrup? I think it's a kind of chocolate
syrup that's special for Actually, yeah, Alice is going to
explain this. This drink called an egg cream for those
that don't know what a fox you bet syrup is
used for as an egg cream, which is a very
traditional New York City Brooklyn beverage. It's chocolate milk and seltzer.
(06:48):
Sound it might sound funny, but it tastes. It tastes
great chocolate milk and seltzer. I'm not gonna lie on
first blush. Sounds disgusting, sounds absolutely vile, and maybe it
has something to do with my lactose intolerance. And so
he kind of already lost me at chocolate milk. I mean,
(07:10):
I understand, I love chocolate milk. I love the taste
of it. But if I was drinking a chocolate milk
right now, Matt, I'm not gonna lie, it would be
it would be a fart fest. You don't happen to
have some lactose free milk around, do you. Well, As
a matter of fact, I do and chocolate syrup. I do,
and Seltzer I do? Should we go make a funny
(07:34):
what's called the funny foxy a foxy funny syrup? What's
it called? I already forgot, I know, I know it's
it's Mr Fox's syrupy syrup. Okay, you don't have to
have the foxes, you bet syrup. You can just have
any kind of chocolate or vanilla syrup laying around, you know.
(07:57):
So should we take a break right now while I
go make up my own version of a you betcha
foxy chocolate e fizzy water thing. You're not gonna believe this,
but I literally just had my egg cream delivered to me.
My wife just brought this down. No, yeah, you had.
(08:20):
You had an egg cream delivered to your face right
now by your wife. This is a delivery episode, so
it was appropriate. You know what, I need to get
me a wife, because you know it's the only person
in the house right now other than me is Dodger,
my dog. And Dodger is not making me no egg
cream or or foxes or you bet you nothing. Well,
(08:40):
we'll take a break. I'll wait for you. Go ahead.
We are talking. Seltzer and drinking egg creams. I'm back,
so I have This is how junkie my life is.
(09:02):
Right now. I have an old spaghetti jar oat milk
because I am lactose intolerant, and I put chocolate syrup
in there, and I don't have any clean spoons. So
this is a butter knife. This smell is really good.
Mine smells really good. Listen to this is the best
sound on earth. Yeah, that's how you know it's good.
(09:25):
So what do I do? I just pour the Seltzer
into this chocolate milk. Yes, okay, here we go. Ready.
This is the first time, by the way, in case
the audience didn't realize this by this point that Helen
and I have actually tried egg cream before. Okay, here
we go. Ready, cheers, clink clink, Okay, Wow, that surprisingly good.
(09:47):
That's actually really good. I'm not gonna lie. I thought
it was gonna be gross. The Seltzer does make the difference.
I mean, it's delicious because it's almost like a little
salty and sweet because the sir has a little bit
of that like mineral quality. If you get it from
the Brooklyn Seltzer. Boys, you're talking like much higher quality
(10:08):
than something you'd buy it from the grocery store. So
I'll let Alex explain why it tastes so much better.
So this Seltzer that we have is it is in
its original form. This is the way Seltzer started. It's
New York City tap order that we take and then
triple filter it. And basically what that does is it
takes out any microsolids, taste odors in the already clean
(10:29):
New York City tap order, and then we add C
O two inside of a carbonator. They mix and turned
together to form Seltzer. Once in the carbonator, we injected
into these old fashioned siphon bottles. The bottles were handblown.
They have to be very thick, heavy glass so that
they don't explode inside our machine or if somebody drops them.
(10:52):
They get put in a wood box and then you
could just dispense the Seltzer inside of a glass. It's
it's ready to go. That is the way it's. It
was a ridge only made. I mean, I gotta say,
you know, it's interesting because our show is called job Slete,
but can we bring this job back? Because as someone
who loves Seltzer, this guy sounds awesome, Like I would
(11:16):
love to have this high quality trigger mechanized seltzer delivered
to my house. Yeah. I think the other part of
this is you noticed how he was talking about the
glass bottles being so special. Um, he actually has a
funny little side story about who is interested in those bottles.
The bottles are mostly handblown in Czechoslovakia and you know,
(11:39):
the early nineteen thirties forties, and they're all imprinted with
different engravings on them and many different shades of blues
and greens. So it's a lot of history to these bottles,
and we reuse them over and over those who are
not used to our bottles. And I have to say,
don't you know the bottles of Larry and Curly? You
(11:59):
know they're squirting each other in the face and laughing.
And do rent bottles to clowns for parties and stuff?
What he rents bottles and clowns? Of course, wait, because
it's like a stereotype that a clown like sprays himself
in the face with with a bottle. Going back to
(12:20):
the Three Stooges, I think like the most impressive part
to me is it how long they last. I mean,
these are the same bottles for generations. They've been using
and it's the same thing with with milkman too. Doing
research for this episode, I came across some a couple
British milkmen and very similar story as the Brooklyn Seltzer boys,
(12:43):
like it was a family tradition. They had the same
bottles for fifty sixty years and it's it's amazing and
that was the biggest appeals that the milkman or Seltzerman
they come with with the Seltzer, the milk they collect
the old bottles, you know, and this process just repeats
(13:04):
over and over, and it's it's so much more ecological
and same bottles, like you said, since the twenties he's saying, right,
like they were handblown in Czechoslovakia, and then you know,
there's nothing going into the waste dream whereas you know,
I love that Topo Chico, but every time I buy
a glass bottle of it, it's like, well, I guess
I'm tossing this bottle in the recycling and hoping it
(13:27):
gets recycled. Another interesting part of the process is the
trust that is developed and the relationship between the the
person who delivers the seltzer or the milk and the customer.
You know, they come so many times a month, and
it's the same person. It's not like Amazon, where it's
(13:48):
a different person every single time, and so much that
they almost sort of, like the way Alex described it
was like their extended family. It's like the postal service,
like the mail delivery person, who is the same person
every day, and you see him and you're like hey,
you know when you wave and you say hi, and
like when it was really hot this past week, it's like, oh,
(14:09):
do you want a soda? Do you want a nice water?
Because you just become familiar with this person. I can't
believe I didn't even think of that analogy. Yeah, that's
that's a perfect analogy. So there's that next clip where
Alex talks about that they're part of the family, both
the family family. The Seltzerman were basically an extension of
the family back in the day because they were coming
(14:31):
a lot more often. There is a big trust factor
also because we are coming, you know, right to their house.
Back in the day, Seltzerman they would deliver many things.
They would deliver the Seltzer, they would deliver soda, beer, candy,
and and all sorts of things. They were already in
your house and some of the Seltzerman, some of the
old school guys. They would go to stores and pick
(14:53):
up paper towels and toilet paper and and just all
sorts of just household items that you would need. So
it's just funny that the Seltzerman was kind of like
the first Amazon. That's so charming because it was like,
you know, if you knew your Seltzerman, you're like, hey,
joey um out of toilet paper? Can you go? You know,
when you swing by tomorrow, can you pick me up
some like that's so cute. It was such an institution,
(15:16):
Like it was so common that in some of the
bigger cities they even had apartments where they had two
separate little doors. They're like cat or dog doors, but
they were for the jugs, you know, either whether it
be Seltzer or milk or paper towels as he just said,
like you know, and one so one door would be
for the new stuff that was delivered, and then the
(15:39):
other door they would put out there the used bottles
that they had. So they were like two little doggie doors,
but they were for used or new Seltzer. That's so cute.
There's there's I believe, like maybe Chicago New York. You
can still find some old apartments that still have that feature.
I'm sure most of them are gone by this point.
(16:00):
But yeah, so it sounds like the Seltzerman were like
so sweet, like these sweet kind people that would just
bring you seltzer and bring you toilet paper if you
needed and you'd be like, all right, thanks, but see
you tomorrow. Well, and you know, if anything, you would
think that, well, if there's competition for the Seltzerman, it's
the Milkman. Wouldn't they be rivals? But apparently there's a
(16:24):
different rivalry that I didn't expect. No, not not between
Milkman and Seltzerman. Definitely, not that I'm aware, but definitely
between Seltzerman Seltzerman was sometimes they were evil. They would
you know, they would want the customer. So when somebody
moves into town, you'd get like four Seltzerman rushing in
to say, hey, do you do you need a deliver guy? Uh.
(16:46):
Seltzerman would steal bottles from you know, they were delivering
into building and another Seltzerman was in that area. They
would take their bottles and and and scratch off their
label and put their label on or something like that.
If bottle wasn't working well. It was very easy to
just switch a bottle from your stock to somebody else's
stock and now give the broken bottle to the other person.
(17:09):
Ounce they're probably it was definitely rivalry between the Seltzerman.
What it's like Seltzer sabotage. It would have made a
great reality TV show, you know, to see some of
these guys, the War of the Seltzerman. That's so crazy.
They just seem like, I mean, what is more innocent
(17:29):
than Seltzer? And these guys are like, I'll cut you.
You take my Seltzer customer, I'll caught you. I like
how he did say, like some of them were evil. Man,
that's so crazy. So they're stealing each other's bottles and
they're swapping out bad bottle. Wow, this is like there's
there's a lot more intrigue than I thought. Mat Do
(18:06):
you know if this was like where this was in
relation to the popularity of Coca Cola or other soft drinks,
like were they could they flavor the Seltzer and make
Coca Cola for you or like was coca thing back
then with Seltzer the only carbonated beverage you could get. Well,
(18:28):
Coca Cola has been around since the eighteen eighties, but
they were not quite at the point where they had
taken over the world yet with distributions, so you know,
they were still competing, and so when people had Seltzer delivered,
it was often just that it wasn't but Coca Cola
(18:48):
also delivered to homes. You know, they had their own
delivery system, just like wow, See that makes sense to
me because I think everyone loves a little harbonated beverage, right,
Like we're all addicted. There's something inherently like so refreshing
about a carbonated beverage. But if coke or sprite isn't
(19:08):
widely available, then you're like, oh, I need something carbonated,
Like the Seltzer is the widely available thing, So I
can see why that would be hugely popular, especially if
it's getting delivered directly to your house. Definitely. And then
was the was the hey you foxy chocolate eat syrup.
(19:28):
I'm sorry, I can't never remember. Was that the only
kind of syrup that you could get? Foxes? You bet
was the name of that, But no, they later they
later began to use vanilla and other flavors. I believe
when they made their egg cream. Don't you think the
egg cream was like a conspiracy between the Seltzer Man
(19:54):
and the milkman. They're like, hey, you know how we
could sell more on this stuff is if we come
by I joined forces and then add a delicious syrup
to the Seltzer milk combo and people get get people
hooked on that, and we'll sell more of both of
our products. Don't you think that's entirely possible? I mean,
I'm not going to put it past them. I mean,
(20:16):
I mean, if I was a Seltzerman and you were
a milkman, Matt, I'd be like, hey, bro, come here.
I mean, it wouldn't be that could be, but you
know what I mean, I'd be like, Well, like Alex said,
the true rivalry was between the Seltzer men. A big
reason why this business kind of uh fizzled out because
(20:36):
people weren't home anymore to take deliveries. You know, the
supermarkets carried a lot more items, and it was very
easy to go to a supermarket and have a much
bigger selection of beverages. I want one of these, one
of these, one of these. So people kind of got
away from this home delivery thing and started going to supermarkets.
I guess it's just made life for a Seltzerman a
(20:56):
little bit difficult just because the volume just decreased. But
it is interesting now you fought fast forward to today.
Now everybody, whether they're working or not working, wants things
delivered to their house. Yeah. I mean if the Brooklyn
Seltzer boys delivered to Los Angeles, I would be like,
where do I sign signing up right now? Because I
(21:18):
love Seltzer and I just love the the concept of it.
But yeah, he's absolutely right. It's like it probably the
demise of it was because I was like, well, now
I have a car and there's a supermarket and that's exciting,
and I have a refrigerator and I can fill it.
And now it's like we've gone full circle and we're like,
I do not want to get in the car. I
(21:39):
do not want to go to the grocery store, like
I want things delivered directly to me. And we have
these refrigerated packaging now and you can get pretty much
like even frozen foods delivered to your house. Yeah, that's
kind of this last clip. He kind of says exactly
what you said. So it used to be there to
(22:00):
be maybe ten Seltzerman on one block, whereas today it's
much more spread out. The Seltzerman had hundreds of customers
in a very small area. Today we don't have that.
It's not really a huge business. So so now there's
Brooklyn Seltzer and just you know, three or four other
(22:22):
Seltzerman doing this full time. We do the same thing today,
although a lot of things are tougher. Parking is more
of an issue, traffic is more of an issue, the
distance between customers is more of an issue. So we're
dealing with things that they didn't have to deal with
back then. But we are doing much less volume than
they did. I wish, I wish the volume was the same.
(22:44):
I mean, if you live in Manhattan, I mean, if
you live in New York City, sign up for the
Brooklyn Seltzer Boys because this sounds amazing and I wish
I could. Is there is there a Los Angeles Seltzer
Boys or or in l A Seltzer Gals that I
can sign up for, because I would. I think there
will be after this episode, I really do. I think
this is an opportunity. And this almost sounds like an infomercial,
(23:04):
but I mean, I mean, it sounds amazing, Like I
would love that, and I want to see a handblown
checklist Slovakian bottle from well. I mean, you know, maybe
you can't be too picky with that, is it? So
this isn't quite jobslete, it's it's almost job sleet. But
maybe we can resuscitate it. And this is a trend
(23:27):
that's worldwide. I mean this, maybe this job isn't so
jobsolete at all because I'm thinking twenty years down the road.
I mean, do you really think that this momentum is
gonna that we've seen from the past year or two
is going to reverse? No, I'm never leaving my house
ever again, I'm not either. This is a twist ending folks. Hey,
(23:59):
you can find Alex Gomberg delivering Seltzer around New York
and at their website Brooklyn Seltzer Boys dot com. And
if you do get the seltzer from Alex Gomberg and
Brooklyn Seltzer Boys, tell us about it on Twitter. We
have a Twitter handle now, Yeah, it's at job sleet
pod on Twitter. Tweet at us let us know how
(24:21):
delicious the Brooklyn Seltzer Boys uh Seltzer is and also
tweeted us if you think that I'm totally right or
totally wrong by saying Topo Chico is the best bottled
Seltzer that you can buy out there. I know somebody's
gonna want to fight me or support me, and you
can do that at job Sleep Pod on Twitter. Job
(24:41):
Sleet is produced for I Heart Radio by Zealots manufacturing
hand Forge Podcast for You. It's hosted by us Helen
Hong That's Me and Matt beat That's Me. The show
was conceived and produced by Anthony Sevini, Jason Elliott, and
Steve Zamrki. Our editor is Tommy Nichol, Our researcher is
(25:01):
Amelia Paulka, our production coordinator is Angie Hymes, and theme
music is by the mysterious Breakmaster Cylinder. Special thanks to
our I Heart Radio team led by Nikki Etre, Katrina Norvell,
Ali Cantor, Mangesh Hatti, Kador, Will Pearson, Connell Burne and
Bob Pittman
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