Brooklyn Farmacy   (Photo: Carolyn Morris)

Brooklyn Farmacy
513 Henry St., at Sackett St., Carroll Gardens; 718-522-6260
Over the past year and a half, Peter Freeman painstakingly cleaned nearly a century of grime from this former pharmacy’s pressed-tin ceiling, mosaic tile floor, and antique wooden shelves. To save money, he even lived in the shop’s back room. Now it’s a soda nostalgist’s Shangri-la, pouring fresh cream, hibiscus, lime, and ginger pops ($3.25 to $3.95) using syrups from Brooklyn’s P&H Soda and Syrup.

Tin City Drug & General Store
366 Lewis Ave., nr. Macon St., Bedford-Stuyvesant; 718-443-4141
Until last weekend, the Stuyvesant Heights section of Bed-Stuy didn’t even have a drugstore, let alone a drugstore soda fountain. But when Saratu Nafziger found herself laid off and with time on her hands, she decided to fix that, transforming what was a burned-out storefront on Lewis Avenue into a gleaming general store, complete with a blue-and-green-striped awning and a shiny new soda fountain. Now neighbors can stop in for their Mrs. Meyer’s dish soap and stay for a strawberry float ($3.50) made with Torani syrup and Van Leeuwen ice cream.

Fort Defiance
365 Van Brunt St., at Dikeman St., Red Hook; 347-453-6672
The secret behind the bar-café’s great cucumber Collins cocktails is the same as the one behind its cold, sharp gingerade ($2.50) with house-made ginger syrup and lime juice: a state-of-the-art fountain shooting out triple-filtered, super-chilled, ultra-fizzy seltzer.

Northern Spy Food Co.
511 E. 12th St., nr. Ave. A; 212-228-5100
Like the rest of the East Village restaurant’s offerings, the soda options are aggressively seasonal. A strawberry-rhubarb soda has already come and gone with the strawberry crop, and the blueberry and cucumber-mint sodas will soon give way to watermelon ($4). The team also uses its antique-replica fountain to concoct fizzy cocktails, including a cucumber-mint wine cooler with Grüner Veltliner ($8) and a shandy made with Victory Whirlwind Witbier ($6).

Related:

• Archive: “Food Features”
• Table of Contents: Aug 2, 2010 issue of New York | Subscribe!