Egg Cream: New York City’s Iconic Beverage

Having not grown up in New York, this southern boy had never heard of an egg cream soda before my first visit to the “Big Apple,” at age thirty-seven.  Even then, it was a few years later, after moving to New York, that I actually had the opportunity to partake of this iconic drink. And though I found it to be refreshing, thanks to the injection of seltzer, for me it was simply a glass of fizzy chocolate milk — no offense to my New York family and friends who may be fans of this once popular beverage.

Now for the uninitiated, egg creams, despite their name, contain neither eggs nor cream. It’s basically a slightly sweet, frothy beverage consisting of cold milk, chocolate syrup (Fox’s U-Bet brand), and carbonated water (aka seltzer), traditionally made in a small Coke-style glass.

A number of suppositions surround the origin of this classic New York drink. The most plausible, according to many historians, is the egg cream was created by Louis (Pop) Auster, a Jewish emigrant, who in 1890 opened his first candy store on the mostly Jewish Lower East side of New York City. Aspiring to have a store for each of his six sons, Auster went on to open a total of five stores including one on 3rd Street and Avenue D, and his most popular in 1900 on the corner of 7th Street and 2nd Avenue, in the heart of the “Yiddish Rialto. It was there that he brewed his legendary, very secret chocolate syrup, which he mixed with milk and seltzer to create a drink he called egg cream. So named because its foamy head reminded him of beaten egg whites. It is said, that this special chocolate syrup is what made his egg creams so much better than those of his copycat competitors.

As the story goes, the Schrafft’s ice cream chain offered Auster a sizable sum of money for his chocolate syrup formula. When he refused the offer, one of their executives called him by a racial slur, and Auster vowed to take the formula to his grave. A vow he and his family kept, even to this day.

Louis Auster died in 1955 at the age 100. His son Mendy Auster took over the business until 1974, when the last store was closed. Legend has it that at the height of his empire, on New York’s hot summer days, Auster sold as many as 3,000 of these iconic sodas, using more than 12 gallons of syrup, in each of his stores.

Another popular theory comes from Daniel Bell, a retired sociology professor, who claims that his Uncle Hymie was the inventor of New York’s iconic egg cream. According to Bell, in the 1920s his uncle owned a small candy store located on the northeast side of 2nd Avenue and 8th Street where, like most candy shops of the time, he served regular chocolate sodas made of one part syrup and two parts seltzer. To set his sodas apart from the competition, Hymie Bell topped his with a scoop of chocolate ice cream. He noticed that as the ice cream melted the drink became so rich and thick that in order to drink it through a straw he had to dilute it with more seltzer. This ultimately gave Bell the idea of making a new beverage consisting of cream, chocolate syrup, seltzer, and egg yolks. And Hymie’s Egg Cream was born. Hymie Bell’s new egg cream drink enjoyed instant success, along with the myriad of competition who quickly copied his idea. But the shortage of eggs and cream brought on by the Great Depression forced soda fountains to leave them out, bringing about the drinks current formulation.

I would be remiss if I failed to mention that in the early 1900s, soda fountains offered a wide variety of drinks that included eggs, several which are still popular today — Egg Nog, Whiskey Sour, Golden Fizz, Prairie Oyster. In fact, by 1906 The Standard Manual of Soda and Other Beverages, authored by A. Emil Hiss, contained 93 egg drinks and was used by most druggist, confectioners and beverage bars. Among those formulas was one for an egg cream:

Over time however, the recipe was changed, eliminating the cream and eggs.

As mysterious as who invented this iconic drink, how it got its name is just as puzzling. Of course if Bell’s accounting is true, the name “egg cream” is self- explanatory.

There is also a claim that “egg” is a corruption of the Yiddish word “echt” meaning “genuine” or “real,” making an egg cream a “good cream.”

Another theory is that the Jewish actor Boris Thomashefsky, who had just returned to New York from Paris, requested a chocolate et crèam (a similar Persian drink). Due to his heavy accent, the request sounded like he ordered a “chocolate egg cream,” and the name stuck.

Finally, some others claim the name came from the drinks foamy head which resembles beaten egg whites.

How and by whom the egg cream was invented, or how it got its name may never be known for sure. What we do know, is it enjoyed almost 100 years as the effervescent star of every candy store and soda fountain in New York City. So popular in fact that Elliot Willensky, author of When Brooklyn Was the World: 1920-1957, wrote, “a candy store minus an egg cream was as difficult to conceive of as the Earth without gravity.”

 Unfortunately, the increased availability of bottled and canned soft drinks in the 60s and 60s, along with the growing popularity of vending machines, slowly pushed soda fountains out of business. And with them so went the egg cream.

Today’s growing interest in retro foods, seems to have breathed new life in the once famous concoction albeit it only in the New York area. For those living in, or close to the “Big City” there are a number of places where you can still get a taste of the real thing. And for the rest of you, we have included the following recipe as told by siblings Peter Freeman and Gi Giasullo, owners of  Brooklyn Farmacy, in the Carroll Gardens neighborhood.

Brooklyn Farmacy’s Classic Egg Cream

Whatcha Need:

• 1/4 cup whole milk
• 3/4 cup seltzer
• 2 Tablespoons chocolate syrup (Fox’s U-Bet)

Whatcha Do:

1. Pour cold milk into a tall beverage glass.
2. Add seltzer until froth comes to the top of the glass.
3. Pour Fox’s U-Bet chocolate syrup into the center of the glass then gently push the back f a spoon into the center of the drink. Rock the spoon back and forth, keeping most of the movement at the bottom of the glass to incorporate the syrup without destroying the froth.
4. Serve immediately.

Please note. If you’re not a fan of chocolate, try making the above recipe using your favorite strawberry, cherry, blueberry, or peach syrup (we suggest Morin Gourmet Syrups).

Whatever flavor you choose to make, we hope you enjoy this iconic New York beverage from the past.