I ran into the English Germanism Seltzer during my very first visit in the U.S. as a fifteen-year-old. My uncle in Maine loved to drink Seltzer with just a hint of natural fruit flavor. I tasted it and cringed. When I returned to Germany and told my mother about it, she stated, “You must have misunderstood. It surely must have been called Selters.” I hadn’t erred, but she was onto something. Seltzer, indeed, is a corruption of the German city named Selters (pronounce: ‘zell-tahs).
Of course, it’s not mere coincidence a town name has become the German generic term for carbonated mineral water. “Saltare” is the Latin verb that the name is based on; dancing waters were what the Romans called water that bubbled to the surface. Romans named a town near Fulda, Germany, Saltrissa because it had such a well. Linguistic shifting turned it into Niederselters (i.e. Lower/Little Selters); the kind of ceramic bottle in which the healing mineral water was exported as of the late 16th century, is featured in the municipal coat of arms. As there are other similar wells in Neuselters (New Selters) and Selters on the Lahn River, there were numerous disputes as to who could claim the original Selters brand. In the end, in the English language, it didn’t even matter. The term became Seltzer, an equally generic one, and that was it.
Germany has long since bottled lots of its mineral waters. They are also available without carbonation (still or light) or with a little carbonation (medium). Depending on the rockbed the water wells through, the minerals determine the flavor. Germany has around 820 certified mineral wells and 450 brands of bottled mineral water. I prefer certain brands from Southwest Germany that I cannot get over here. The Italian brand of San Pellegrino comes closest to their flavor.
It was a German fellow-journalist who first introduced me to the idea that it was way easier on one’s back to have a carbonation option at home than to carry crates of heavy glass bottles filled with mineral water from the stores and back (Germany has a deposit system). As the tap water in my native town was really nice, I was easily persuaded and got myself a table-top carbonation system. It remains to say that my then future husband caught the bug, and a while after my arrival over here, he bought us a carbonation system that I still use with filtered water. Prices for gas capsules have steadily risen ever since Covid, but it is still a wonderful, almost non-waste option to have.
What’s the difference between Seltzer (no matter whether bought or home-made) and club soda? Seltzer is natural mineral water, and it CAN but need not contain sodium bicarbonate whereas such and similar minerals are added to club soda in order to balance the acidity of the carbon dioxide. As less sodium is healthier for us, my husband and I have stopped using club soda entirely.
Now, what do we do with our home-made Seltzer? I drink it as is or with a squish of lemon or lime juice. Sometimes I mix in about fruit juice of any kind at a ratio 1:3; anything higher juice ratio makes it too sweet for my taste buds. And you can obviously use that mixture also to create your own long drinks. On hot summer days, a glass of wine mixed with Seltzer is a nicely refreshing after-hours beverage. Did I say that some Germans like to put Seltzer into their pan cake dough, as well? It makes the dough a bit fluffier, as the frying heat expands the bubbles in the dough.
As to the term Seltzer in German – to my knowledge it only exists in the name Alka-Seltzer, which is the brand of a medication popular in use for headaches. Maybe, because we native German speakers still can make neither head nor tail of it how Selters ever became Seltzer.
