Grasshopper New Media Presents...

I don’t like to have soda in my home very often. It’s high in caffeine (at least the kind my family likes) and high in sugar, and the worst kind - high fructose corn syrup. But we do enjoy the refreshing aspects of the carbonation, and there’s just something *fun* about the fizz tickling your nose. Wanting to still offer soda to my kids, but to have more control over all the aspects of it, I researched making my own soda at home. But after reading about all the steps involved, not to mention the necessary time and the space, I decided to hold off until the kids were older and we had more space in our home.

So I was extremely excited when I came across Soda Club’s home soda makers! The company provides its customers with a way to carbonate their own tap water, and to flavor their homemade seltzer (soda water, sparkling water) the way they choose to do so.

The generous people at Soda Club sent me a sample to review (the Edition 1), and my kids went crazy for it, wanting to try all the flavors one after another! We were excited to see the wide variety of flavors available (besides the usual “cola” flavors, there is apple peach and cranberry raspberry!), but I first had to set about to the task of putting the machine (if one can call it that ) together.

Off to the kitchen, with what I thought was a daunting task ahead of me. Everything on the website led me to believe that this would be easy, but seeing everything in its basic state made me think otherwise.

Not so! As the kids stood around and watched me (and I held my toddler), I put the carbon bottle inside its case and snapped it all together. It was so easy, I thought I had done something wrong. Well, now to test it, and hope nothing would explode!

On the site, there’s a really cool step-by-step video demo that shows you how to use the soda maker. I was a little leary that it would be that easy, but it really was! The only thing I had trouble with was getting the bottle connected to the threads at the top (imagine the soda maker being a large bottle cap that you have to thread the bottle into), but after a few tries I got the hang of how to hold the bottle correctly, and it’s super easy now (watch for a video here soon - I’ll show you my tip ).

So now we love to make our own soda at home. Like Soda Club suggests, we keep both bottles full of water in the fridge, nice and cold and ready to carbonate at the drop of a hat.

Unfortunately, however, we don’t use the syrups offered by Soda Club. Our family has decided that we won’t use products that include Splenda, which many (and I think most) of their syrups use. And many of their syrups also use a product called Acesulfame K. After some quick research on this artificial sweetener, I decided that I’d rather not have my family use products that include it.

So then, why would I even recommend it, you ask? Well, read below for the many reasons.

• If you buy seltzer/soda water at the store, this will save you money.
• You control the amount of fizz that comes from each bottle - fewer pumps, less fizz (we like it with a lot!). It also stays fizzy longer (and I mean a long time; I left a carbonated bottle in the fridge for weeks, forgetting it was already carbonated, and it still had substantial fizz after all that time).
• It’s extremely convenient - you don’t have to carry heavy bottles of soda water back from the store, and you don’t have to go to the store to get some when you run out.
• It’s environmentally friendly (and you know how I am about this). Yes, you can (and hopefully are) recycle the soda cans and bottles you get from the store, but reusing the bottles that come with your soda maker is even better for the environment. They even have a whole page dedicated to what makes their product so Earth-friendly, with a link to a site for kids.
• Splenda may still be a better option than all those diet sodas that use aspartame, and many many people choose to use it, so Soda Club’s syrups may be for you.
• And if you choose not to use the syrups that are offered by Soda Club, you can easily flavor your seltzer/soda water with fruit juices (or as I prefer it, with a squeeze of lemon).

Check out their site for a ton more information about their products (I love their Penguin, which is even more environmentally friendly because it uses glass bottles, and they are more convenient because you can put them in the dishwasher) and more reasons why making your own soda or seltzer at home is a better option than buying ready-made soda from the store.

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