Things That Make You Go Green

I used to travel to South America quite a bit for work, and in my travels there, I developed a taste for ‘agua con gas’ which is like regular water, but somehow more exciting because of the bubbles.

But carbonated water is all packaged in bottles and cans, and as I’ve gotten more environmentally conscious, I’ve made a concerted effort drink less packaged drinks. But it’s hard! So you can imagine my delight when Kristin over at Soda-Club suggested that we should try out their home soda makers!

I’ve been testing Soda-Club’s Edition 1 soda maker for the past few days, and I’m happy to report that it’s easy to use, is a great replacement for buying packaged seltzer / soda water and soda. They’re not cheap (starter packages start at $100) but if you drink lots of soda and other packaged drinks, you should definitely consider them.

Soda-Club’s Edition 1 came in a surprisingly heavy package. The reason for that became clear when I opened the box. The home soda maker consists of three main components. Bottles what you fill with water , the machine itself, and a big, heavy, foot long CO2 canister. Pleasantly, there are no batteries and no plugs. To get the Edition 1 going, you just remove a panel on the back, screw in the CO2 cartridge, and you’re ready to go. All of this was quite easy to do, although I did think that it was hard to get the panel back on.

And now to the fun part. To make your carbonated beverages, you fill the provided bottle with cold water, screw it onto the soda maker, and then press the button on the top of the machine a few times. I was somewhat confused about how many times to press the button, but once I found the video demo on their website, it totally made sense. Because you press the button, you control the amount of carbonation! Sweet.

When you’re done carbonating, you just unscrew the bottle, and enjoy. Or, if you prefer, you can add flavoring at this point. They have a variety of sweetened and diet soda flavors on their website, and they taste good, although not exactly the same as store bought. They also have some “unsweetened fruit flavor essence.” I tried orange, and it was definitely good – they tasted alot like Crystal Geyser’s flavored soda waters.

A few things I didn’t like: I noted was that although the carbonation lasts a long time in the bottle, the carbonation in a drink seemed to fade pretty quickly. It was good for about 15 minutes, but if you left it out it seemed to go flat faster than store bought. Also, the CO2 canisters are supposed to last from 30 – 100 liters, you can’t get them refilled locally, so you need to order more from the Soda-Club website. (You can send the old ones back)

In any case, I thought that this was definitely one nifty drink-maker to have in the kitchen. It lets you make your own carbonated beverages any time you want, in a variety of flavors, without going to the store, and without the guilt of the energy spent shipping drinks around the world and the plastics and aluminum you need to recycle. It’s expensive, but if you drink lots of soda, you should be able to have the device pay for itself in a year or so. And besides, it’s fun to use.

Update: Kristin over at Club-Soda informs me that:

There are CO2 refills available at authorized retailers across the country – you can look for one here: http://www.sodaclubusa.com/wheretobuyRETAIL.htm Just bring your empty in to the store, and get a full one, for the price of the gas contents only (SRP $19.99).

Unfortunately, you cannot get them refilled locally. The Alco2Jet carbonators are filled with beverage-grade CO2 in compliance with FDA standards for food and beverage safety. Your local filling station (a paintball place, for example) generally won’t supply beverage-grade CO2 and could possibly introduce toxins into your carbonator.