Fizztastic
Last summer, Ian and I had an addiction. It led to many trips home from the co-op with very heavily loaded bicycles, and many trips out to the recycling bin with bags full of cans.
Our addiction was to La Croix mineral water, specifically pamplemousse flavor. This was partially because pamplemousse is very fun to say. It was partially because cold, fizzy drinks are the most fun thing to drink when it is hot. And La Croix’s pamplemousse is good stuff. I am not going to give a link to it, because their website is all Flash, which is obnoxious and makes me want to kick something, but the water is good stuff.
Anyway, because I like going fast on my bike (12-packs of water weigh you down!), I think reducing waste is just a little better than recycling it, and because I don’t like spending money if I don’t have to, I decided to explore other options.
And the option I found was the Sodastream Penguin. We acquired ours in the middle of last summer and used it a LOT. A bit of simple syrup, some lemon or lime juice, some ice, you’ve got yourself a nice, refreshing beverage. Add some vodka to the mix, you’re in business.
Our Penguin was in hibernation all winter when cold, fizzy drinks lose most of their appeal. But now it’s back out, especially after I added some leftover mint and rosemary to simple syrup and needed to find a way to reasonably put as much of that delicious substance in my mouth as I could. Minty simple syrup, lemon juice, ice, fizzy water – now you’re in business. Add vodka? A new, less innocent business. But still a business.
Now, the Penguin runs about $200, so it’s not cheap. I happened to have a gift certificate to Williams Sonoma, which sells the Penguin, which offset our cost. But I think the math would have worked out well regardless, since our La Croix “problem” was running us $7/week anyway. It would have paid for itself within about 6 months of steady use. And so far, it’s proven to be the easy to use, difficult to break solution to the problem of needing to drink massive quantities of fizzy water all summer long.