Have you ever had an authentic Brooklyn egg cream?
If you haven’t then you’re missing out on one of life’s greatest experiences. The only way to describe it is heaven in a glass.
If you’ve had an egg cream then you know!
Think back to your childhood and imagine drinking an ice cream soda, but melted. It’s kinda like that… but better.
Heck, they are so good Brooklynite Lou Reed even wrote a song about them.
Funny thing is, egg creams don’t contain eggs or cream!
So how did the egg cream get its name?
There are a few theories:
- Some say it’s a variation of the Yiddish word, “echt keem” which means, “pure sweetness”.
- Another idea is that it’s Brooklyn speak for “a cream”.
- It also could have been named for the creamy froth on top of the drink that looks kind of like a foamy, egg white top.
- Another theory is that theater pioneer Boris Thomashevsky asked a New York soda jerk for a Parisian drink called “chocolate et creme” and somewhere in the confusion the name was born.
What’s in an egg cream anyway?
It only takes three ingredients to create the magic that is an egg cream:
- Whole milk.
- Soda water.
- Fox’s U-bet syrup which, like all good things, is made in Brooklyn.
The syrup can be chocolate or vanilla, but it HAS to be the U-bet brand (just ask any Brooklynite).
“It has been Brooklyn’s official elixir since the 1920s. Although it has evolved to complement the extraordinary diversity of the greatest borough in the world, Fox’s U-bet chocolate syrup, milk and seltzer from the bottle hitting the spoon at just the right angle to produce a beautiful, white head will always be Brooklyn to the last sweet gulp.” – Former Borough President of Brooklyn Marty Markowitz
Where was the egg cream invented?
There’s some controversy here.
Was it invented in Brooklyn or New York City’s Lower East Side?
The most popular story is that it was invented in Brooklyn by candy shop owner Louis Auster during the 1880s. Rumor has it he sold 3000 a day and they only cost 3 cents each. He took the recipe with him to his grave. The syrup was then replaced by U-bet’s.
Are you ready for an egg cream?
You better be!
“A candy store minus an Egg Cream, in Brooklyn at least, was as difficult to conceive of as the Earth without gravity.” – author Elliot Willensky
Try this nostalgic and popular Brooklyn drink on our Best of Brooklyn Tour where we always stop for a full sit-down lunch at the original Junior’s on Flatbush Avenue!
