Carol from Chicago sent in her recollections of growing up with a home-installed seltzer faucet.
- My father, too, had a seltzer fetish, and in 1956, when he built our first house, the kitchen sink in addition to the hot and cold spigots had an ice water spigot as well as a huge u-shaped seltzer dispenser. This unit was the same used in those days in soda fountains (are you old enough to know what that term mean)?
- Under the sink was a tank of CO2 that occasionally had to be replaced when empty. He then removed it and took it to a neighbor, the East Chicago, Indiana, Pepsi bottling plant, where the tank was graciously refilled. I grew up drinking seltzer from this dispenser. My father’s name was Joseph. It is innately in the name that Josephs must have their seltzers?
- Unfortunately for my Dad, the seltzer dispenser did not last as long as he intended to use it. I think by the time I was in Jr. High, it had no longer worked, and parts were obsolete, and he never replaced the system.
- You hit it right on the head, referring in your article the reason Dad used Seltzer. He felt it helped him with a good “greps” (burp).
- Thanks for a great reminder about my dad, who died when I was 19 in 1970. LeChaim!
Does anyone else have tales of home-installed seltzer faucets? I wonder how many were out there. So far I have heard of two, one in Chicago now and a second in Huntington, Long Island.