Friday, June 21, 2013

SodaStream Source Review...Plus a SodaStream Fountain Jet Giveaway!!

According to the calendar, today is the first official day of Summer!! Here in Central Texas, that means drinking a lot of icy-cold drinks to help stay cool. We drink our share of  ice water and iced tea, but sometimes only an ice-cold fizzy soda can hit the spot on a hot, sunny afternoon! To make that easier and more affordable, I’m kicking off Summer with a fun SodaStream giveaway! If you’ve never heard of SodaStream, it’s a fabulous machine that fits easily on your kitchen countertop and lets you make fizzy soda and flavored carbonated water at home. No more lugging home heavy bottles of soda from the grocery store...and the reusable drink bottles are also  good for the environment! SodaStream recently sent me a SodaStream Source machine and several varieties of soda syrups to test out in my kitchen. The set up was super easy – within 10 minutes of opening the shipping box, I had the CO2 cartridge installed and was ready to try the machine out! 

The Source allows you to lock the provided soda bottle into place, then you simply press down on top to carbonate the water. The Source even has an LED indicator that lights up as your press, indicating the fizz level from 1 (easy one the fizz) to 3 (super fizzy). This lets you customize your drink experience…we like our soda really fizzy, so we use the third level (about 7 pumps). The resulting beverage is just as fizzy as any name-brand soda you'll buy. After the water is carbonated, you remove the bottle and add your favorite flavoring. SodaStream offers a wide range of flavors in three varieties: Natural (sweetened with cane sugar), Regular (a mixture of sugar and sucralose) and Sugar Free (sweetened with sucralose). We tried both the regular and sugar free syrups and really liked both. I drink sugar-free soda exclusively and find most “regular” sodas way too  syrupy-sweet for my taste. We sampled SodaStream’s Regular Root Beer with a casual dinner one evening, and I found it refreshing and not overly sweet. With 35 calories per 8-ounce serving, the Regular soda syrups are low in calories too! 

Of the flavors we've tried so far, my personal favorites are the Diet Orange, Regular Root Beer, and Crystal Light Lemonade. The lemonade is tart and fizzy…perfect over a big glass of ice on a hot Texas afternoon! Whatever flavor profile you like -- fruity, traditional soda flavors, energy drinks, tea, or  even Crystal Light and Kool Aid --  they have it in their huge inventory of flavors. The starter kit I received came with single-bottle samplers, which makes enough soda for Michael and I to each have a large glass with our dinner. We’re planning to buy an extra reusable beverage bottle so we can always have a bottle chilling in the fridge. If you’re not into sweet beverages, no problem! SodaStream also makes unsweetened fruit-flavor water enhancers that can be added to water that you carbonate.

So…who wants to win a SodaStream Fountain Jet Starter Kit in time for Summer? SodaStream is going to give one of you a fabulous starter kit that includes:
  • A SodaStream Fountain Jet in winner’s choice of color (black/silver, red/silver, or white)
  • One carbonating bottle, reusable for up to 3 years
  • Reusable CO2 cartridge carbonator that will fizz up to 60L of soda
  • Variety 6-pack of popular sample-size flavors
  •  THREE full-sized flavors of the winner’s choice 

Entries will be accepted until 1159 PM CST on Tues, June 25th. You can have up to THREE entries to up your chances of winning. For one entry, leave a comment below telling me which three SodaStream flavors you most want to try. For a second entry, Like SodaStream on Facebook and leave a post on their wall that The Weekend Gourmet sent you. For a third entry, follow SodaStream on Twitter and tweet the following: “I just entered @TheWeekendGourm’s Summer @SodaStreamUSA giveaway!”. Make sure you leave a comment below  for each entry you complete since I pick winners via random number generator. Finally, please make sure to include your e-mail address on at least one comment so I can find you if you win. Good luck!!

Disclosure: SodaStream provided me with a Source unit and a variety of soda flavorings to facilitate this post. However, all opinions expressed about the unit and the flavorings are my own.

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