Soda Stream

penwill1, Jan 14, 5:02am
Daughter is thinking about buying her hubby a Soda Stream machine for his birthday, just wondering if they are worth while now days when you can buy fizzy drinks so cheap.thanks for your comments
clgodkin, Jan 14, 5:19am
Am almost embarrassed to share, but I was telling my mother that I was thinking of buying one only this week. While we were out shopping we saw them and she stood there and worked out how much it would cost per drink and I couldn't tell you what figure she came up with but reckoned it was cheaper to buy premixed from the supermarket.
charlieb2, Jan 14, 5:21am
When you consider you can buy the 1.25 litre (or whatever they are) bottles of fizzy from 89c at my local supermarket... I think you'd be hard pushed to get it cheaper.....
rose52, Jan 14, 5:39am
I don't find it is that much cheaper, but i do remember reading somewhere that it has less sugar in than premixed when made as directed (i could be wrong). Also I like to use half the amount of recommended syrup, and also to make soda water etc.
alewis, Jan 14, 5:44am
well - I brought one as the family xmas present this year, and am really pleased we had one back in the day orange and white it was and it did the trick, I find I really like fizzy cold water and this is what you get no frills, we also discovered lemon lime and bitters cordial and mixed that with our soda water and young son (18) pronounced it was just as good as the bottled stuff in the pub !! - you dont have to use their syrups, they are not bad dont get me wrong but there is nothing wrong in using roses lime or lemon cordial or mixing half soda water with orange juice so if you use it this was its quite cost effective, no one is going to make coke like coke so wait until its 89c but for tap water whats wrong with fizzing it up.
in my usual long winded way I am recommending you buy a soda stream :)
drsr, Jan 14, 5:48am
It's about the same as the "generic" supermarket drinks if you ignore the initial cost of the machine. There's less plastic waste, and less schlepping bottles home from the shops and out to the rubbish. Plus you can make your own flavours, I like half-and-half lemon and lime juice with no sugar.
southerngurl, Jan 14, 1:08pm
we use thriftee most of the time instead...
penwill1, Jan 14, 4:23pm
thank you for your comments, I was a little concerned I would have been shot down in flames with people being far more health conscious now days.
beaker59, Jan 14, 5:53pm
At the end of the day it makes soda water which is carbonated water same as Pams soda water for 89c 1.25L at PnS. As for health its what you do after that that counts.

My brother who is an engineering buff built one that screwed into a standard 1.25L plastic bottle which worked really well if they sold one like that I would be more interested rather than the single glass sized bottles they currently do.
popeye333, Jan 14, 6:02pm
You can get two different size bottles to use in the machines. a 500ml and the larger one is either a litre or 1.25.

We have one and use a gas bottle every 2-3 weeks. We buy the diet flavours.

We dont have anything going flat and not filling the bins with bottles
sharronk1, Jan 14, 6:15pm
we use our soda stream heaps, we use Wests flavouring or the swheppes raspberry as we dont like the soda stream flavoring find them to sickly sugary.Its convient and handy and we mainly only use the small bottle so no wastage
cgvl, Jan 14, 8:06pm
I do what ackland_ali does. I haven't bought the soda stream flavourings for years mainly because they are either too sweet or the diet ones leave a horrible after taste.
I use either Roses lime juice or any of the barkers flavours or the one I love most is Buderium ginger refresher and the other flavour we use heaps is the lemon, lime and bitters one.
But in reality most of the time I just drink the aerated water with no other flavour added.
mike16, Jan 14, 9:02pm
I cool the water , fizz it , and drink the carbonated water. It's lovely without any flavouring. Carbonated water is a big deal in Europe , delicious. I bought 2 1/2 litrebottle and find one sufficient. Mike, Paeroa
jerrytravis, Jan 14, 9:36pm
me too, straight is the best! i recall having a debate with a health fanatic work colleague who tried to persuade me that carbonated water is carcinagenic 'cos it contains 'carbon'.
infamousbinkie, Jan 14, 9:48pm
One of my workmates told me I should stop drinking it because it has way more calories than other fizzy drinks.

WTF?

I found it VERY hard to keep a straight face!
alewis, Jan 14, 9:54pm
when I try and drink more water I put diffrent things in, I have not tried it but will with the fizzy water its a couple of drops of caramel flavouring or vanilla essence felt like I was eating/drinking something sweet - no calories either!!
alebix, Jan 15, 2:39am
We have one and I LOVE the sugar free syrups. I dont use the recomended amount either.

BUT dont get sucked inot buying those bigger bottles, you only 6 litres out of them instead of the usual 12 from the smaller bottles (im meaning syrups).

AND of you got Harvey Norman, you get like a loyality card for soda stream...
dabo, Jan 15, 2:44am
On one of the cooking programmes recently they did a random on the street taste test between expensive French champagne and blue nun white wine fizzed up in a soda stream! More people picked the sodastream wine as the nicest and priciest. So now there's an idea for you to try!
pickles7, Jan 15, 3:43am
Same in our house. I like to put about a 1/2 tsp in a small bottle.
I never buy fizzy drinks.
charlieb2, Jan 15, 5:47am
I agree with ali though. I LOVE flavoured fizzy water.. but yummy ones are hard to come by.I love roses cordials... so that would be 'ace' in the soda stream.Love fizzy water with lemon slices too....I wouldnt buy one to make 'coke' etc.. but idea of fizzy flavoured water is great... how much does a cylinder last and what do they cost?
ladyjet1, Jul 12, 3:38am
My wee boy has just inherited the old orange and white soda streamthat we had as kids as my beautiful Mum has just passed away suddenly.Still in perfect working order, must be close to 30 years old.Just wondering if anyone knows if the gas bottles are the same as the "modern" version, and if so where do you get them refilled?
cgvl, Jul 12, 3:59am
refill's for soda stream (gas bottless) are the same.
get them (exchange) from Farmers. Harvey Norman, some Supermarkets, not sure were else off hand. last time I got one exchanged it cost $10 -$12 but need to shoop around as some places are cheaper than others.