"A rather unusual advantage of the syphon bottel was its use as a fire extinguisher."
Bryan Grapentine, antique collector
Carbonated drinks were known in France as early as 1790, but the soda syphon or seltzer bottle was developed by Deleuze and Dutillet in 1829. This featured a hollow corkscrew that allowed some of the contents to be dispensed, via a valve, while keeping the bottle under pressure and its contents fizzy.
The modern bottle, which remains essentially unchanged today, was patented by Antoine Perpigna in 1837 and was known as the "Vase Syphoide." In an improvement on the earlier design, the head featured a valve that was closed by a spring. The drink is carbonated by pressurized carbon dioxide. The excess pressure causes more of the gas than usual to dissolve in the liquid. When the liquid is returned to atmospheric pressure in the glass, this gas comes out of solution as bubbles.
Syphon bottles were made of glass initially and had to be refilled by hand using specialized pumps. The process was further complicated by the need for the valve to be depressed in order for the syphon to fill. Explosions were not uncommon with the pressurized bottles, which were generally filled to a pressure of 140-160 pounds per square inch (10-11 kg per sq cm). The syphon was improved by the use of gas canisters to carbonate the liquid, with several patents being filed on this development.
The soda syphon continued to grow in popularity until the 1920s and 1930s. However, in the 1940s the seltzer trade virtually collapsed with the major bottle- making centers in Czechoslovakia being devastated by World War II and American bottle production diverted to making war materials.
