Today my family took my sister for her birthday to Hamilton’s Soda Fountain & Luncheonette, in Greenwich Village. The food is fantastic and cheap – old style luncheonette food at old fashioned prices (a hot dog for $2) – but the star is by far the soda fountain. Alex, the soda jerk, was generous enough to explain his awesome concoctions (based on old recipe guides) that he’s been perfecting for more than a year before they opened.
The video below shows his egg cream. I’ve never seen it made this way before – U-bet’s chocolate syrup last! – but I’ve had worse.

I was SO excited to have my first phosphate. I’ve read all about them but had no way to really understand what they were all about. The base here was cherry and root beer (their cherry syrup is incredible – now my favorite Lime Rickey). The phosphate cuts the sweetness and makes the taste more crisp. It was interesting but not sure it’s my new thing. Check out how it’s made:

My sister ordered this Strawberry Puff (flavored soda with whipped cream). Their seltzer, I have to say, is fantastic!

This Kight’s Egg Phosphate is not just a regular phosphate (which smooths the sweet and heightens the crisp) but also includes a raw egg. I have been equally excited, since writing my book, to try both a phosphate and a raw egg at the same time – and now I got to try both at the same time. I can say now I’ve done it – I can see why people who were low on cash and lower on protein might have favored this – but next time I am at Hamilton’s (and I plan to go back in a few weeks) I will definitely turned to my new favorite – the Lime Rickey.

It is fascinating to visit here after a trip to the Brooklyn Farmacy and Soda Foudnation. While everything at Farmacy is phenomenal – and serves my favorite egg creams – I think they seek to evolve the recipes while Hamilton’s aims to bring back or preserve the old recipes. That’s interesting. And even more interesting is to see over time if the city’s new-found interest in soda foundations is big enough to support both directions.