Soda fountains reached their height of popularity in the 1940s & 1950s, where the ice cream soda became a staple. While there are few true soda fountains left today, the culture lives on in homes, restaurants, and ice cream parlors across America.

The egg cream drink consists of seltzer, cold milk, and sugary chocolate syrup – there is NO egg nor cream! One point of agreement is that the drink was first produced either in Brooklyn or Manhattan’s Lower East Side.

The most popular explanation is that Louis Auster, a candy shop owner, in the 1890s, concocted the drink by accident. It was a hit and he reported was selling thousands a day. Auster refused to sell rights to the drink to an ice cream chain, was blasted by an executive with an anti-Semitic slur, and then never released to authentic recipe.

Other soda fountains, then, relied on a Brooklyn-based chocolate syrup, the ingredients of which were Sugar, corn sweeteners, water, cocoa, and some “secret things.”