an Lubo‹ (Univers ty of Guelon,Canada) and Konstantin Miller (University of lannover, Comany)

(Outline of a proposed collaborative book, circa 1999).

The idea for this book evolved first in discussions with French siphon collector Jacques Iniesta. We received ideas from other collectors and bottlers, that a modern standard reference work was lacking. This book seeks to catalogue the various siphon/syphon bottles found round the world, as well as their precursors and equipment used to fill them. We therefore are attempting to fill in the history of the carbonated water industry, including the original breakthroughs in chemistry and physics to understand how “bubbles’ could be forced into liquid drinks, through the technological advances (and patent battles) permitting siphon bottles to safely hold and dispense the aerated waters. As well, we examine the family /business histories involved in supplying seltzer, soda, Vichy and other sparkling waters to consumers. We also trace the differing social functions served by aerated/ carbonated and artificial seltzer waters (a variety of prescribed health uses in the home and hospital, as a publicity and artistic object, as a family table beverage, as a mixer used in bars or cafés with alcohols such as Scotch, absinthe, etc., or in drug stores and soda fountains in ice cream sodas, egg cremes, etc.). We compare differing locations or contexts for the siphon bottle in each country: home delivered, or exclusively used in hotels, bars, cafés, golf clubs, pharmacies, and even on battleships. We will also look at socio-historical transform-ations as Seltzer went to war, to the colonies, and crossed class boundaries in some countries.

We have interviewed siphon industry bottlers and photographed a wide range of bottles from UK, European, Australasian, Argentinian and North American collectors, beverage manufacturing associations, and antique dealers. We thank them for their knowledge and assistance, as with various library personnel worldwide who helped us locate rare documents in, e.g. Library of Congress, British Library, Corning Glass Library, etc.  We hope to acquire additional photos and documentation from interested collectors and family bottling businesses. As well, we will consult catalogues from glass manufacturers and equipment suppliers, patents for siphons, etc.

Although we will not publish a “price guide” per se, our book will indicate the relative comm-onality or rarity of various styles/colours/shapes of siphons. We will be combining information from several large collections into a computerized database, to describe the relative frequencies of each size, colour, shape of bottle (and head), as well as geographic regions of high vs rare seltzer use. We hope to give detailed case histories of various families or businesses that illustrated aspects of the rise and fall of the seltzer industry in many countries, e.g., Carl Schultz Co. of New York, Hammer’s of Buffalo,  Shardlow’s and the British Syphon Co. of the UK, Wylie’s and Newell’s in Australia, Nu-Jersey Creme in Canada,  as well as others in France, Austria and the US, filling siphons up to the 1970s. We hope to also describe companies still continuing after 2000 (Pitts-burgh, Gomburg, Castle, A-1,Three sisters, etc.), as well as record the stories of home-delivery seltzer–men and women. By the 1960s/1970s, large multinational beverage corporations and super-market chains together transformed consumers’ drinking behaviours for carbonated water and flavoured beverages. The labour-intensive siphon-refilling industry gave way to throwaway plastic, glass, and aluminium containers, and refilled siphons disappeared (although hanging on in Argentina, Spain, Romania, Hungary, and Austria, and a few cities in the USA.).

Post script: 2023: Although this book could not be completed, other authors in the past decade have in fact produced detailed works about siphons, including Frederic Nortier (2018), Dave Smithson (2018), Jean-Claude  Delannoy (2017), Barry Joseph (2018) (bibliography, p.5)