fenchurch | Making soda at home

And now for Sunday's photo. A few weeks ago, John Kovalic (the artist behind the online comic Dork Tower) posted to Twitter and Facebook about his love for his SodaStream machine... and mentioned that he was using italian soda syrups with it. Well, I'd been sort of thinking of getting a SodaStream at one point, but had decided not to because all of the syrups that came with it were sweetened with a combination of sugar and sucralose (I absolutely cannot stand the taste of sucralose). So, I replied rather joyfully that I had no idea you could use other syrups and he replied back to me with some more info on how to do it. Yay! We headed out that night to pick one up and discovered that the company is now producing a line of "natural" sodas... sweetened with sugar! Double Yay!

I also discovered I really had no idea how it was supposed to work. Essentially, you're making your own club soda and then, afterward, adding the syrup to make the various sodas. This opens the door to a whole lot of fun drinks! And, when I was sick on Sunday, I was able to make one of my favorite sick-time beverages: orange juice and club soda! And sure, I could just continue to buy bottles of club soda, but making them with the SodaStream saves on bottles and also tends to be fizzier than the stuff that's been sitting on a shelf.

Looking around at the available flavors, aside from what I could make myself with Torani syrups (and I was pleased to discover that the passionfruit syrup makes a passable substitute for Passiona), I was very happy to see that they had a "natural" Country Time Lemonade!! Which means, of course, that I can now make my most favorite soda of all time at home: Lemon Squash!!!

It's not quite as good as just buying Solo or Lift, but I have to mail order those from Australian import companies and they're REALLY expensive... and this is available cheaply here, plus gets the added benefit of freshly carbonated water. Yum!