Sunday, July 6, 2008

Make Your Own Soda

If you read Danielle's July 4th post, you would already know that Dana and I went to visit with her and have a holiday BBQ. Danielle's 10 year old niece Alli was also joining us so I thought this would be a great time to try out my new Soda Club home soda maker!


There are so many benefits to being able to make your own soda. First, it's healthier than soda you buy at the store...Regular flavors contain two-thirds less sugar, calories, and carbs than store bought soda. Diet flavors are sweetened with Splenda, not aspartame. Almost all flavors are much lower in sodium than store bought soda, and most are caffeine free. Second, it's earth friendly. Did you know that Americans drink about 600 cans worth of soda for every adult and child in the United States? Soda bottles & cans make up over 3 billion cubic feet of garbage that goes into our landfills and recycling facilities every year. Soda Club carbonating bottles are reusable, and its soda mix flavors are highly concentrated, making them an environmentally friendly alternative to canned and bottled soda. Last, it is super convenient! The machine is small & will take up less space on your counter (or in your pantry) than a coffee maker. They do not use electricity or batteries so you can bring it along camping, boating, or RVing.

The way to make the soda is to fill up the reusable bottle with cold water. You screw the bottle into the machine which contains a pressure air canister to make the carbonation. After you press the top button to add the fizziness to the water, you unscrew and add your flavoring. Then tilt the bottle up and down a few times to mix it all up. The whole process takes about 30 seconds to make 1 liter of soda. The special caps for the bottles will preserve the fizziness and flavor for days but I bet the soda won't even last that long!

The flavors that we tried were cola, orange, diet root beer, and the soda club's own energy drink formula. First we tried the cola and honestly if you told me that I was drinking Coke or Pepsi I totally would have believed you. The other flavors were also as yummy and the energy drink formula really tasted like the popular Red Bull. Some of the other flavors available are lemon lime, cream soda, ginger ale, and vanilla cola. Most of the flavors are also available in diet as well. There really is something for everyone. Another thing to mention is that even if you don't really like soda, you can also make flavored water and seltzer too!

This was a great thing to have at a party because even though there were only six people there, everyone had a different favorite flavor of soda, and no party host wants to worry about buying so many different things. This was especially nice to have because Danielle doesn't even have soda in the house so it was a real treat for everyone.

If you think about how often you make your own lemonade or iced tea at home, why not make soda too? The equipment and flavorings are very reasonably priced and pay for themselves very quickly by saving you money at the grocery store. Soda you make yourself costs only pennies per serving. Along with saving money, you also save time, garbage, and storage space. Check out their website to learn more!

Here is a pic of the 2 different Soda Club machines, reusable bottles, and flavorings



This is the diet root beer we made and below you can see Alli being a great soda model!


5 comments:

Jerri at Simply Sweet Home said...

wow, interesting product!

Danielle said...

Alli really loves that machine! It wa pretty cool. I enjoyed your copmment that I don't have soda in the house.

Dana said...

it was a ton of fun.. and very tasty!

Missy said...

I think I read it on Dana's post that you guys "made soda" and I thought it was a typo. :)
Very cool. I would love to try it. But I call it "pop". :)

Tracy said...

This looks yummy and fun! It has been months since I've had soda and I still crave it! Dr. Pepper is my personal poison of choice!