Bubbly Beginnings

Barry Joseph ’91 has a long-running fascination with fizzy drinks, particularly seltzer. And he wants others to learn all about its effervescent history. 

In summer 2024 Joseph launched the Brooklyn Seltzer Museum, a partnership with the oldest seltzer factory in New York City. Where else can you learn about seltzer’s 2,400-year history, sample a classic egg cream and recreate the Three Stooges’ iconic gag by spraying your friends with a seltzer siphon? 

The museum celebrates the science of seltzer as well as the beverage’s cultural influence in New York City and beyond, says Joseph. It operates within the working Brooklyn Seltzer Boys factory amid vintage tools of the trade, including a 100-year-old London-made siphon filler. On the tour, visitors can learn how New York City tap water is triple-filtered through sand, charcoal and paper before being mixed with carbon dioxide and put into thick, handblown glass seltzer siphons made in Eastern Europe.  

“It’s a beautiful place, an amazing glimpse into the past — but a part of the past that is still alive and vibrant today,” Joseph says. 

An ad hoc major at Northwestern, Joseph designed his own major from scratch and earned an Integrated Arts Program certificate. “Northwestern gave me the opportunity to explore my passions and figure out how to connect the threads around different areas of study — and that’s what I’ve been doing ever since,” he says. 

Connecting threads for museum visitors has been a longtime focus for Joseph, a digital experience designer who worked for years at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. He now consults with museums, universities and online educational institutions. 

While researching his first book, Seltzertopia, Joseph met Brooklyn Seltzer Boys vice president Alex Gomberg. When he visited Gomberg’s new factory in 2022, “it was museum at first sight,” Joseph says. “Learning about seltzer’s history will help you understand anything bubbly you drink in a whole new way.”