Deli - Style Chocolate Egg Cream

The chocolate egg cream is a tasty drink that's been around since the 1920's. Popular in delicatessens throughout New York City, it contains neither egg nor cream. No one is totally certain where the name came from. While the traditional egg cream is made with a high-pressure seltzer siphon bottle, very few of us have these at home... so, you have to improvise to get that beautiful foamy white cap on top of your egg cream. It won't be the perfect deli-style egg cream, but it will come real close (I promise!!). You can also use vanilla syrup, instead of chocolate, for a Manhattan Egg Cream, the process is the same.

• Ready In: 5 mins
• Serves: 1

Ingredients

•  ice cold  whole milk
•  chilled plain bottled seltzer water (or a soda siphon bottle with a CO2 cartridge and chilled water, if you have one)
•  chocolate syrup (Fox's U-Bet brand is traditional, but Hershey's will do in a pinch)

Directions

1. Put a long-handled metal spoon into a very tall drinking glass. Fill the glass with about a 1/4 full of ice cold milk.
2. Pour the seltzer water SLOWLY into the milk, leaving about 1 inch at the top of the glass. If you've done this correctly, you should already see a nice creamy foam developing on top of the drink.
3. Use the long-handled spoon to stir and quickly blend the chocolate syrup with the milk and seltzer, doing your best NOT to disturb the foam at the top of the glass. Stir until the chocolate is well blended into the drink. After stirring, top the drink off with a little more seltzer, until the foam rises to the top of the glass, almost overflowing.
4. Remove the spoon and, there, you have it! -- a delicious Chocolate Egg Cream with a beautiful white cap on top. And, if you don't get it right the first time, practice makes almost-perfect -- an almost-perfect deli-style Chocolate Egg Cream.
5. P.S. Don't use a straw. A foamy mustache is half the fun! Enjoy!