Gazoz

September 2, 2010 - 8:41 AM by

The drink and the album

Following a summer partially spent in the States, including a month-long stint in Georgia, the land of free drink refills — we’re talking iced tea, lemonade, soda, and not just the endless cup of coffee — imagine my surprise to see on a local Jerusalem menu the word “refills” next to a very specific

The beverage in question was “gazoz”, which is really a retro drink these days, made of seltzer and various flavored syrups. It was gone for many years from the Israeli kitchen and restaurant menu, although home carbonation systems — and then just store-bought bottles of seltzer/soda water — carried on the tradition. But the last few years have brought gazoz back to the beverage list, and it’s a happy thing. Sure, you can have your limonana and iced coffees on a hot day, but the simplicity of soda water with a spritz of lemon, peach, pineapple, passionfruit, etc. syrup is easily refreshing too. And, clearly, quite cheap if a local restaurant is willing to offer free refills.

Interestingly, I always thought that the word gazoz was based on one of the European languages for gas, or carbonation. But a little Googling brought me to this Forward article, whose author found that the Turkish “Gazöz” means fizzy lemonade. “The Turks must have borrowed this word, along with the soft drink it designated, from the Italians — and since Palestine was under Turkish control until 1917, it is highly likely that Turkish rather than Italian was the immediate source of Hebrew gazoz. French, it almost certainly wasn’t.”

And like many popular Israeli terms, the word gazoz was popular for a while, so much so that a classic Israeli rock band borrowed the term; Gazoz was only around from 1978-1979 and released just two albums, including the now classic: http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x9pfc7.”

Tags: , , , , • Category: Art, Business, Food, General, History and Culture, Immigrant Moments, Israeliness, Pop Culture 

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