As I’ve focused more on writing the book and less on this blog, my comments about the project tend to appear more often on the Facebook page dedicated to the project. But I am playing now with Google’s Ngram viewer, that lets you search for occurrence of words to unearthRead More →
Last week for the first time I put the book together, end to end, to learn it is 250 pages. I like that. Feels just right – not to long and not to short. And now I have a draft of a manuscript I can shop around, currently title: SpritzRead More →
Below is a copy of a wonderful new article by Leah Koenig in the Forward about the seltzer revival at the center of my book (the book, btw, is now in a draft manuscript form and being shopped around). The Next Generation of ‘the Seltzer Man’ Something Big Is BubblingRead More →
Last January I published a piece on Alex Gomberg. Now, larger news outlets are beginning to take notice: 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,Read More →
Oops! I have been so busy with the book and the Facebook group, I have neglected the blog. Sorry! 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 ifRead More →
Walter has been sending me great material documenting his work, as he is a media hound and a lightening rod for anyone interested in the topic. Here is a radio piece on the BBC from last March. Start at 18:30. From July 5- July 10, 2007, a Japanese TV crewRead More →
Yesterday, after waiting for many years, I finally had the incredible opportunity to spend the day alongside Walter Backerman, who runs the nearly 100 year-old route. He was tremendously generous with both his time and opinions. I have HOURS of interview now to transcribe but, in the meantime, below areRead More →
My Hungarian contact, Kiss Imre, sent me this fanastic photo today. He wrote: “How do you like this fountain from GYŐR, the town where our ÁNYOS JEDLIK invented his soda making technology?” According to Wikipedia, he was a Hungarian inventor, engineer, physicist, and Benedictine priest. He is considered by HungariansRead More →
I received this email from a reader in Minnesota who was interested in figuring out why everything came with such different names: 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 areRead More →
I previously wrote about discovering the Hungarian seltzer museum, and associated book. Below I will share some of my favorite images from the book and associated captions or descriptions. Austrian Postcard from end of the 19th century One of many examples of unusual siphon heads, the “soul of the siphon”Read More →