First-ever NYC SeltzerFest draws sold-out crowd of fizzy fans, celebrating Big Apples quirky century-old tradition

These seltzer fans are bubbling with excitement.The first-ever Brooklyn SeltzerFest honoring the carbonated drink’s history in the five boroughs – featuring tastings, antique syphons and a national egg cream competition – sold out in Brooklyn on Sunday, with over 600 attendees coming together to celebrate the pop-ular drink.“Seltzer’s impact on New York City is more than just industrial, it’s more than just cultural: it has been worked into the life blood of who we are as a city – but its impact and history is often underappreciated,” Barry Joseph, director of the Brooklyn Seltzer Museum and co-founder of SeltzerFest, told The Post in an interview.“What we’re trying to do is remind us of who we are, where we came from and to appreciate the people who are helping to carry it forward,” Joseph, 55, said of the all-day event at Industry City.Among the festival’s honorees were Walter Backerman, a third-generation seltzer maker whose ongoing 60-plus-year route includes Westchester, Brooklyn and some of the same Lower East Side sites that his grandfather delivered to in 1919. “What makes it special is you’re not just delivering a product, you’re sharing [in] people’s lives,” said Backerman, who was awarded SeltzerFest’s Spirit of Eli award — named for the late “Sultan of Seltzer” Eli Miller.

“You enter people’s homes, and you become part of their lives.” The fizzy celebration was initially concocted by Joseph and Brooklyn Seltzer Museum co-curator Alex Gomberg as a means to draw more attention to the budding museum, which opened in 2023 at the site of one of the nation’s last seltzer factories – and has since drawn more syphon savants than its founders could have imagined. “As soon as we opened the doors, we couldn’t close them,” the Forest Hills resident recalled, noting the Cypress Hills museum’s centuries-long span of history through manufacturing, science and cultural exhibitions.Notably, the space highlig...