Four years ago, my friend Web asked if I'd drive to Houston with him to buy hundreds of aluminum-clad seltzer bottles. This was not an unusual question from someone who uses antique arc lamp housing as a liquor cabinet—I didn't even ask why he wanted the bottles. Since then, he's ordered a 100-year-old seltzer machine from Maine and commissioned local Haulin' Colin to build him a bicycle trailer. Web now runs the first bike-powered seltzer delivery service on record.

"People on the street laugh at how slowly the cart moves," Web says. I also laugh, but the cart's industrial charm is worth its pace, especially when it's rolling through the park under a striped beach umbrella. The bottles are armored because water can only be carbonated under pressure (cue the Queen song) high enough to make ordinary glass bottles explode.

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