Making our own drink "syrups" without sugar?

[csziggy]

Hubby is hooked on carbonated drinks - I've tried to wean him off them but he is resistant. Mostly these days he drinks Diet Mountain Dew and a flavored carbonated water that is a Wal-Mart brand. But the Wal-Mart brand is being phased out, so I have an opening to get him on a completely different path - a SodaStream!

Way back before SodaStream started national advertising, a DUer turned me onto the idea and I love it. It should save some money and NO MORE plastic bottles. Right now, drink bottles are at least half our trash!

Anyway when hubby came home the other day with his dire news, I reminded him of the SodaStream. We will still have to buy (and turn in for reuse) their C02 things, but I thought about the flavors he likes in his flavored water - SodaStream does not make syrups for them. So I want to make our own. For his Mountain Dew, we can buy the SodaStream emulation but since he likes fruit flavors for his waters, I can make syrups. But I don't want to make them with sugar.

I found some on the internet - http://www.formerchef.com/2009/09/13/homemade-ginger-syrup-and-the-sodastream-soda-maker/ had some good sounding ones for ginger ale and key lime syrups. And I like their suggestion of putting the syrups into squirt bottles and just put some in a glass and pour carbonated water over it. No need to store lots of different flavored water, just the syrups and pre-carbonated water.

I also found sources for flavor concentrates for carbonated drinks, but the most cost effective method for using them is to make our own syrup - http://www.prairiemoon.biz/flavors.html I would not want to use their sugar free syrups since they are made with neotame, the new aspartame.

What sweetners, hopefully low or no calorie, can I use to make a flavoring for carbonated drinks? I've got a bunch of Splenda that I can try out, but I know there are newer ones made from more natural ingredients. I just don't know which ones might be good with fruit and hold up to storage. I'm thinking I can cook up batches of "syrup", freeze or can, then bring out when he needs a new flavor.

So which of the sweetners can be cooked and/or heated if I attempt to can them?

[Warpy]

1. Splenda is the gold standard, IMO

Aspartame seems weird to me, while the Splenda makes it taste like soda. I'm not fond of the flavor of Stevia, so I don't use it.

As for the flavors, some like the berry and citrus flavors (even grenadine syrup made from pomegranate juice) wouldn't really need sweetening, but you'd have to tinker with the amounts to know how much to use per glass.

I have the Soda Stream lime concentrate and it lasts forever. It doesn't take much to flavor a whole bottle and it's really thick stuff.

Even unsweetened Koolaid made into a paste might work, especially with Splenda added later.

I, too, require bubbles these days, although I've been drinking green tea, too. I go between diet soda and plain seltzer water. The lime flavoring is refreshing in summer, but I'm not fond of it in winter.

[Dover]

7. A recipe you might enjoy using green tea and sparkling water, lime and mint.

By green tea I mean Matcha, which is kind of expensive but so intense/concentrated that it lasts a long time. I use AOI Tea Company's, Chef's Choice which is a little less expensive and still very good quality. For those unfamiliar with matcha, it's the tea used in Japanese tea ceremonies - pure, powdered/ground up young green tea leaves.

For this recipe you'll need a bamboo or other type of whisk, a medium sized bowl (the size of a cereal bowl) and a lemon/lime press.
If you go to sites that sell Matcha you'll see the kind of bamboo whisk I'm referring to.

For one 8 oz. glass:

Matcha
Fresh Mint Leaves
One Lime sliced in half
Sparkling Water (good quality matters)
Agave (or sweetener of your choice)

Pour about 1/4 C of sparkling water into a bowl.
Add 1 Tablespoon of matcha and whisk it vigorously until water/matcha are smooth with no powder lumps.
Add 1 - 2 Tablespoons of agave and whisk some more.(you can adjust the amount to your own taste)
Add the juice of half a lime and whisk some more.
Finally add several mint leaves that have been bruised in your hand to release flavors and stir them around in the bowl. You can either leave them in the drink or remove them once their flavor has been incorporated.

Fill an 8 oz. glass half way with ice.
Then pour about a 1 C. of just the sparkling water into the glass.
Now add the matcha mixture from your bowl and top off the glass with more sparkling water if there's room.
Stir the drink vigorously (or mix by passing the liquid back and forth between two glasses).

So healthy and refreshing! Enjoy!

Matcha can also obviously be used in hot drinks, health shakes and even in food recipes.

[csziggy]

9. We'll try it first since that is what we have

But I may get some of the other suggestions to test, too. It will mostly be what hubby likes and there is not predicting that.

I mostly drink plain well water - ours is nicely laden with minerals and tastes good to me. I do like ginger ale with fruit juice when I have a cold, but I don't like carbonation very often.

[jmowreader]

2. Try Stevia

I've cooked with it, and it seems to work well.

[NMDemDist2]

3. a couple things

prairie moon will sell you straight flavor syrup concentrate http://www.prairiemoon.biz/fulflavlissa.html

you can mix with your own sweetner but we did away with the sodastream's co2 bottles

we bought two 5 gallon canisters at our local welding shop (they fit nicely on the shelf in the cabinet under the counter) and we only pay $8.50 for 5 gallons of co2 which lasts us 6 weeks (instead of the 10 days a soda stream canister lasts)

hubby adapted our SodaStream with some parts from this guy http://www.co2doctor.com/freedomoonespec.htm

[csziggy]

13. I think Prairie Moon's selections are awesome and we will try some of them

But I was hoping to keep our internet orders down. Of course, we would probably only have to order from Prairie Moon once or twice a year. So you use the Prairie Moon syrups? Which do you like? Do they have any that are similar to Mountain Dew?

I love your idea for getting the CO2 cheaper! We'll have to figure out where to put a tank - with tiled counters, we can't just drill a hole and put it underneath. I'll have to look at what size tanks there are and think about possibilities. We do have a spot where we could drill through the wall and put a tank in the space under the stairs - that would be nicely out of the way!

Hmm - they have adapters that would let us refill the original carbonator tanks - then I wouldn't have to worry about where to put a tank. I'll show this to hubby and we will figure out the best option.

Thank you!

[NMDemDist2]

16. we never were big soda drinkers so no

as far as the cabinet install, we have tile counters too, but the sodastream lives on the short counter next to the fridge so we drilled through the side of the cabinet and just run the hose up between the cabinet and fridge, works great in our kitchen YMMV

[csziggy]

17. Now that might work, if we need to put a larger tank

We have a cabinet next to the fridge where we store the cat food. Now that we are down to one cat, it's mostly empty and we could put a good sized tank in it. Thanks for the idea! Of course, hubby will not be happy with the idea of pulling out the big fridge to drill the holes and run the hose.

[beac]

4. I use various POM (pomegranate juice) flavors and lemon juice

to flavor my carbonated water. My local grocery chain sells the fizzy water in aluminum cans (which are 100% recyclable, so I feel a little less guilty.)

http://www.pomwonderful.com/products/juice/100-pomegranate/

I find a little of the juice (just a splash, really) flavors 12ozs. of water quite well and the lemon gives it a nice sharpness.


I had a 6-pack-a-day diet Pepsi habit and finally kicked it about three years ago. Now I can't drink any sodas, diet or otherwise, b/c they all taste horribly chemically to me.

If I have to but a soft drink on the road, I stick with SoBe's zero calorie Life Waters. Nice fruit flavors and with a stevia-based sweetener. But, at $1.50 a bottle, much too expensive for everyday drinking (and all those plastic bottles...)

[grasswire]

5. keep in mind that new study recently showing that...

...dark diet sodas daily indicates higher risk of stroke and heart attack. Something about the coloring in colas and root beer, etc.

[NMDemDist2]

6. it's worse than that!

Over the long term, the effects of colas are devastating to the body. Acidity, sugars, and artificial flavors and sweeteners can shorten your life significantly.

It takes 32 glasses of alkaline water at an alkaline pH of 9 to neutralize the acid from one 12 oz. cola or soda. When you drink a cola or soda, the body will use up reserves of its own stored alkaline buffers, mainly calcium from the bones and DNA to raise the body's alkalinity levels, especially to maintain proper blood pH levels. Acidic blood levels cause death! There are enough acids in one soda to kill you outright if you didn't possess a mechanism to neutralize them by taking minerals from your bones and tissues. But your body's mineral supply can be used up.

more at link http://healthenlightenment.com/soda.shtml

[csziggy]

11. Where is most of the acidity coming from? Is it the carbonation or the syrup?

One person told me that carbonation creates acidity. This is a big concern - hubby just got bone grafts in his jaws because of deteriorating bone. The periodontist is mostly blaming it on his periodontal disease (hubby has a family history of it) but if the carbonation is implicated, I may have a bludgeon to get him to cut back more on his fizzy drinks!

[NMDemDist2]

15. no problem with fizzy water according to the Guardian

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2006/feb/02/water.food

[csziggy]

10. I know - I've been nagging him about the fizzy stuff

He mostly drinks Mountain Dew and the flavored fizzy water now. He used to suck down a lot of colas, so he has reduced the dark drinks.

Here is the other thing - I just got finished reading a study that indicates that the sugar receptors in the stomach and intestines are key to releasing insulin and other stuff to digest food. Some artificial and replacement sweetners still trigger the same reaction, but the ones that don't may cause problems because the proper compounds in the right amounts may not be released so that food can be digested. It's a preliminary study, but it indicates that altering our diets can have unintended effects.

[Dover]

8. Have you tried agave nectar? It dissolves easily in liquid and doesn't take much to sweeten.

It's supposed to be okay for diabetics. It's considered natural although there are
folks who would debate that due to how it's processed.

Something I drink a lot of that has a fizz to it and is healthy are packages of
Emergen-C which come in a variety of flavors and some don't have any sweetener at all.
It's basically vitamin water mix - you add the water.
It's not as fizzy as a carbonated drink, but it's enough for me and quick to make when
I want something to quench my thirst that has a little flavor and kick and is good for me.
http://www.emergenc.com/

[csziggy]

12. I'll get some of the agave - haven't tried it before

I've signed up to get some free samples of Emergen-C. Their flavors look interesting and I could use the joint version. I take glucosamine chondroitin daily, but extra probably wouldn't hurt.

[Dover]

14. Great, I hope you like them! Let us know....n/t