Long before sparkling water with brand names like Polar, Perrier and La Croix crowded market shelves and refrigerators, New Yorkers relied on seltzer men to deliver carbonated refreshment. Eli Miller, one of the last of the old-fashioned Seltzer men, covered a route in Brooklyn from 1960 until he retired in 2017. He died March 12 at his home in Brooklyn. He was 86.

Mr. Miller was inducted into the Brooklyn Jewish Hall of Fame in 2017. His fellow inductees that year included Judge Judy Sheindlin and Ira Glasser, a former executive director of

the American Civil Liberties Union.

Before his retirement, Mr. Miller often reassured his customers by saying, “Old seltzer men never die — they just lose their spritzer.”