No Substitute For the Real Thing

No Substitute For the Real Thing

Below is a great email I recently received:

My paternal grandfather, Benjamin Letowsky, owned a seltzer route in Brooklyn from the 1930s to the mid-1940s. My uncle, Jack Letowsky followed in his footsteps and probably was in business until mid-1950s. I recall that their truck was their pride. The seltzer works they used was Brooklyn based, but I can’t recall the name. The bottles had the name LETOW etched on to them and were, of course, manufactured in Czechoslovakia. They were mostly blue and white with a few green mixed in. I have only 1 or 2 of them in my possession for memory. If I recall correctly they also sold Cott’s soda and U-bet syrups. They frequently complained of sore shoulders and bad backs and had helpers until the seltzer business started to fade. To this day there is no substitute for the real thing – a siphon freshly filled!
Norman D. Letow, NYC

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