CARROLL GARDENS — A popular neighborhood ice cream shop that was once an old apothecary has launched a cookbook featuring its tasty treats and a brief history of soda fountains in America.
Brooklyn Farmacy & Soda Fountain at 513 Henry St. celebrated the publication of “The Soda Fountain” last week, which holds about 70 recipes ranging from soda syrups to sauces and toppings, egg creams, floats and sundaes.
“It’s really kind of celebrating the classic soda fountain staples,” said Peter Freeman, co-owner and head soda jerk at the Farmacy.
The hybrid book is split into recipes and a history section, which Freeman believes is crucial to appreciating the culture and food around soda fountains.
“The history is what defined the recipes,” he said.
The book explores the last 200 years of the soda fountain, a quintessentially American eatery that Freeman and his sister Gia Giasullo brought to Carroll Gardens in 2011.
The Brooklyn Farmacy was once home to Longos Pharmacy and still holds relics of the old apothecary like a neon “Pharmacy” sign in the window-front.
Soda fountains were a fixture in pharmacies, and later malt shops, during the 1930s and 1940s, Giasullo told DNAinfo New York last year. But their numbers have since depleted and Freeman hoped the recipe book would be a way for people to continue the tradition at home.
“We’re living the history of the soda fountain every day,” Freeman said.