Dee, I was talking about this to my husband and he told me that Twist and Sparkle had been recalled by ISI for problems carbonating beverages other than water. The Soda Sparkle, made by another mfg, is being purchased as a replacement because it is the same type technology (carbonation screws into bottle top instead of having countertop unit). Sorry to steer you wrong on that! We do have the siphon and that's a great way to do sparkling water, only you have to add any flavoring to the glass after it is fizzed.

k - Thank you for the info and the update. Still not sure what I am going to do but your posts were helpful. I need to decide soon, DH's birthday is in a few days!

dee

We have a soda stream penguin. I chose the penguin model because it has glass carafes. We have had it several years and we really like it.
My parents have a different model, one of the ones where you have to screw the plastic bottle on. They like mine much better. They also wasted their entire first catridge because they were not screwing the bottle on tight enough. They are old, they have since figured it out.
All my siblings have them too. None of us use any of the flavors, we just really like bubbly water. I purchased it because it seemed unenvironmental to keep purchasing bottles and cans, even if I was bringing the empties to the redemption facility.
I cant imagine why anyone wouldnt get one if they enjoy drinking seltzer.
This year when we went rented a cabin for vacation, the sodastream and my wafflemaker went with us. Essentials - for quality of life LOL

We have a Soda Stream, not sure of the model number, but it's a countertop model that the plastic carafes screw into. We love it! DH uses it daily, we do not purchase any of the flavors, we just use it for carbonated water. Before we bought it, DH was buying Pellegrino, which got quite cumbersome to shop and store and created a lot of glass bottle waste. (He goes through several bottles a day.)

On a side note, we're building a house now and when shopping for a fridge I saw that Samsung has a fridge with the Soda Stream built into the door. I thought it was fabulous, but I couldn't convince DH to spring for it. It would have been so nice to to have the water chilled and fizzed without having multiple bottles to contend with.

I just use Canada Dry seltzer and make a fruit syrup from fresh berries. Good old Canada--it never feels controversial when I pop open a can.

I love my soda stream. I add my own fresh lime, lemon, orange or raspberries for flavor or drink it plain. I have the 130l canister so I make 120+ litters for 30 dollars. Much cheaper than buying seltzer and no more lugging 10 plus bottles every week in and out of the car. I love it so much I gift it as end of the year gifts to teachers(with gift receipt) and it has gone over wonderfully as a gift.

Ahhh... May_flowers .

If you've been popping open a can since 2008 it's been from a Texas company.
Since 1919 manufacturing has been in New York as well.
Be careful ,they also have plants in the Middle East :)

Yes, I figured there was no Canada in Canada Dry, lol!

I've just recently become interested in seltzer. It all started with recreating a chocolate ice cream soda I had at a soda fountain in the Hudson Valley as a kid. I didn't realize that a NY egg cream is basically a chocolate soda w/o the ice cream, so I made a few of those. Now it's Oregon blackberry season, so I've been having berry seltzers.

Hi Dee - I just noticed that the Mastrad Purefizz Sodamaker is on woot.com in the home section today for $39.99. Not sure if you've already gotten one. It gets good reviews. Might try one myself!

I use a few spoonfuls of a strongly flavored fruit juice, like fresh orange from the tree, or crush a few fresh cherries, raspberries, or a piece of pineapple, instead of syrup, in a glass of seltzer water. Tastes fresh and really good. The bit of fruit gives just enough sweetness and flavor, and is more natural than a syrup. One can get the flavor of the fruit without all the calories that are in fruit juice.

gail - I did get one, for almost the same price, from BB and B. I didn't have the luxury of being able to wait for something to be delivered. The store had small sale plus i used the 20% coupon and a mail in rebate.

DH didn't seem that thrilled about the gift until I put it together and then he realized how it worked. Hoovb - thanks for the ideas. We try not to drink soda but we love fizz.

I have one. I go through easily 3-4 liters of seltzer a day and it was getting expensive and hard to lug that many plastic bottles home from the store. We have the 130L cartridge one (from Costco), but because I like it really fizzy and I go through so many liters a day, it was empty in a couple weeks. And I could only get the smaller sized refill canisters at the local stores -- I would have had to mail-order the larger ones.

So I invested a little more in a freedom one hose from a company called CO2 Doctor. It lets you hook up a 20lb CO2 tank (like you'd find in a restaurant fountain soda machine) to the sodastream. Although the initial outlay was high -- about $100 for the sodastream, $100 for the freedom one hose, $65 for a used CO2 tank on craigslist, then $30 to exchange the tank for a full one at the local Airgas -- my expenses now are nothing -- one $30 tank of air lasts me almost a year -- at an average of 3 liters a day with several extra pumps per bottle. If I was more frugal with the carbonation level, it would last close to 2 years. So now the $30 that used to get me about 2 weeks worth of seltzer gets me 10 months. Definitely one of the best purchases I ever made.

One downside - you will have to find a place to put the 20lb co2 tank - it's big and heavy. We have our sodastream sitting on a pantry shelf with the tank sitting on the floor, all hidden behind the closet door. My sister has friends (who told us about the freedom one in the first place) who keep their sodastream on the counter and the tank in the cabinet below (they drilled a hole for the hose in the counterop).

I have no affiliation with the CO2 doctor website or the freedom one product, but if you are a heavy sodastream user and you have the room for the larger tank, I highly recommend it! (I will link to the CO2 doctor site below -- they also have products that let the sodastream take paintball gun CO2 canisters -- apparently, that is also cheaper than purchasing refills through sodastream....)

Here is a link that might be useful: Freedom One