To get their hands on a carbonated beverage, the average consumer will need to visit a store or food vendor and walk away with a bottle, can, or paper drink cup that they will throw away once their drink is finished. But Soda Stream by Soda Club offers a solution for this on several levels: by enabling you to create carbonated beverages at home in a matter of seconds, and by providing high quality reusable bottles to hold the beverages that you create. And the benefits are many: greater convenience, less cost per beverage, and less waste!
It came up in a random conversation with a colleague of mine from the US, where she explained that it is quite a popular item, amongst her circle of friends at least. Soda Stream recently expanded their product into the Canadian market (now available in a total of 29 countries) and sent GayCalgary and Edmonton Magazine a unit to review.
The SodaStream consists of a dispenser that ties in with a carbonation canister. Optionally, it comes with a line of flavour syrup packets to create something similar to your favourite brand-name soft drinks. It works by first carbonating plain tap water that you then mix with a flavour of your choice. The unit requires no electricity, making it easily portable (just not on planes).
Unfortunately thanks to Canada Post, the unit arrived about a month in advance of the flavour packets. But eager to try it out, we got creative and mixed in some of our own sugar-free powdered drink flavours that we normally use on plain bottled water. It worked out surprisingly well!
When the flavours arrived, we had even more variety. The Soda Stream website lists over 60 different syrups - some diet and some not – such as cola, ginger ale, lemon-lime, pink grapefruit, red berry mix, apple, orange, exotic fruit flavors, energy drinks, ice tea and cocktail mixers. You can buy them in bottles intended to make 12 litres of drink, or in single litre mix packets. I found that the diet cola flavoured mix wasn’t quite as palatable as what you would expect of the brand name colas, but the fruit flavours were quite good, and not overly sweet.
The flexibility of the product was also very impressive. In my case, I’m not a fan of really strong carbonation – I will often swish or stir pop from a bottle to release most of the fizz before drinking it. So I was pleased to see that you can even regulate the strength of the carbonation by the duration that you apply the nozzle to the water.
The unit is available in Sears stores across Alberta, as well as at Planet Organic stores and a few others in major cities. You can purchase it online from their website, or even redeem your Airmiles to get one! SodaStream comes in a variety of different styles, with prices ranging from $150-$300. Replacement carbonation canisters and flavour mixes come at additional cost.
