We have a new find that’s certain to entertain you - and your guests - come end of summer. It’s the discovery of our executive producer Christiane Mack: the SodaStream Penguin.
AOL news editor Claire Robinson reviews Soda-Club's products and shows how it is cheaper to make soda at home.
The home seltzer market is really fizzing, whether it is because of parents weaning kids off commercial sodas, environmentalists fretting over the carbon footprint of their imported waters or penny pinchers tired of paying someone else to carbonate their drinks.
It is an incredibly fun and helpful thing to have around the house. All you have to do is snap a one-liter bottle of tap water into the machine. Then you hear three noises and what you end up with is carbonated soda.
Even though plastic soda bottles can be recycled, doing so still uses energy. So if you can consume less, that's the best green option. But if you are really fond of your soda, then make your own.
The Soda-Club is an $89 device that lets you make your own soda at home. No more carting cases or bottles from the grocery store, no more cans to recycle and a significant saving on every beverage.
Mayor Bloomberg's edict to forgo (expensive, unfluoridated, landfill-clogging) bottled water is easy to follow; our taps produce delicious water, fresh from the Catskills. But what about carbonation? Soda-Club USA's soda-maker makes seltzer from tap water; fill the kit's reusable plastic bottles, snap them into the holster, and pump a button several times until your beverage is good and bubbly.
FOR those of us who prefer sparkling water to still, it's not easy keeping up with the latest trend. Plain tap water has become the surprise food fashion of the year. A growing number of restaurants are offering it in place of bottled water, which is much more lucrative and whose popularity had made the free-flowing kind seem déclassé. On the street, it is not uncommon to see people toting tap water in refillable Nalgene containers.
The first rule of Soda Club is: beverage companies do not talk about Soda Club. Many Switched On columns have addressed devices that quench the thirst for digital entertainment. This one addresses a thirst that often develops while enjoying it, one that Americans often quench by drinking more than 55 billion liters of soda and seltzer each year.
The easy-to-use system makes perfect soda in your home. I consider myself an expert of sorts on soda. Not because there's some faux gourmet aura surrounding the stuff, but because I drink a lot of it. There are some flavors I like and a whole lot I don't. What gets me is the wide variance in prices of the big brands, from 89 cents for a 2-liter bottle to $1.69 for the same exact item in some stores.
