"Good seltzer should hurt."
That’s the catchphrase printed on the back of the T-shirt that Kenny Gomberg, president of Brooklyn Seltzer Boys, wears as he tours guests around his seltzer factory in Cypress Hills.
Seltzer water is a ubiquitous commodity in 2024, where multiple brands of flavored, hard, and regular sparkling water can be found at any bodega. But, as the motto on Gomberg’s shirt indicates, the seltzer that his family-run business makes hits different.
Brooklyn Seltzer Boys’ product is bottled through a seltzer siphon, which is a thick, glass bottle with a tin head attached to a thin, glass straw that originated in the 19th century in Eastern Europe.
“What you might get at a store in a plastic bottle—that’s never going to be as strong as what you can make in these old-fashioned bottles,” said Barry Joseph, a co-founder of the Brooklyn Seltzer Museum, which is inside the factory.
Indeed, the ultra-fizz of the seltzer satiates seltzer lovers’ needs with a distinctly bubbly taste.
The Gomberg family has four generations of experience in crafting this fizzy flavor. Originally called Gomberg Seltzer Works, the operation has expanded over the past 70-plus years. It now includes a museum, the business moved from Canarsie to Cypress Hills, and the family started offering tours and events– all part of the rebranding effort of Alex Gomberg, the company's vice president.
For a while, it was not clear which family member from the next generation would step in.
“I have four children and none of them seemed interested in taking over the seltzer business,” said Kenny Gomberg, Alex's father. “But Alex, who went to the University of Massachusetts and graduated with a B.A. in sports management and a master’s degree in higher-ed admin—all of that qualified him to be a seltzer man.”
Sign-ups for tours of the factory can be accessed through the Brooklyn Seltzer Museum website or through New York Adventure Club, which conducts the Build-a-Bottle workshop.
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