Raise a glass.

I was very surprised to see Original New York Seltzer back in the stores here. It looked just the way I remember seeing it when I was a youth, thirty years ago, in the little glass bottles. It's a fine family of beverages. The only complaints with Original New York Seltzer are, it's not original, it's not from New York, and it isn't seltzer. 

Aside from that it's great. 

Let's first look at what it isn't. It's not original in any New York seltzery way I can determine. The name would seem to indicate that the soda comes from someplace that made seltzer back in the days of lunch counters and bicarb and bottomless coffee cups on every block in Manhattan, but it's no such thing. It's not from New York, even; the company is from California, where it originated in 1981. It folded in the 1990s, and is now being revived, again in California. And that's not a bad thing, it just has nothing to do with New York. 

Nor is it seltzer, in the sense of seltzer as a carbonated water to which no other ingredients have been added. ONYS (as they style it) does not make a "2 cents plain," although they have introduced cans of sparkling water. One of them is technically seltzer, but even that is billed as "sparkling water" on the can. Above you see the cream soda I bought -- calling that seltzer is like calling Coke or Pepsi seltzer. 

So it isn't anything like what the company says it is. What it is, however, is a really good soda. It's got sugar -- none of their classic line comes as sugar-free, at least per the Web site -- but they're cute little 10-oz. bottles, sold in 4-packs. It's an occasional treat, then. Where else do you find blueberry soda? And the sodas were always clear, which was a thing back in the day, at least until Tab Clear killed Crystal Pepsi. 

One other thing I wanted to point out, though. I suspected that there'd been a change to the design of the original label, which has always shown a fanciful version of the Manhattan skyline, as drawn by someone who'd never seen the real thing. Except for ol' Lady Liberty, the structures are not exact depictions; there's a sort of Woolworth Building and a kinda Citicorp. But online I found the original Original cans, and you can see another structure, or rather a pair of them, that would have represented something on the skyline in 1988 but not in 2018. 

All the way on the left.

Yep. Always something there to remind me.