Alternatives to SodaStream or Primo Flavorstation Flavorings

by Rod Smith, rodsmith@rodsbooks.com

Web page created: 1/2012; last update: 3/27/2013

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The makers of the SodaStream and Primo Flavorstation devices would love for their customers to use nothing but their own flavor syrups. By the very nature of these devices, though, it's easy to use other flavorings. The major obstacle is simply finding suitable products—supermarkets don't exactly abound with soft drink syrups. This Web page describes one approach to finding and using alternative carbonated beverage flavorings.

The Motivation

A SodaStream Jet, flanked by supplies: 4-ounce, 1-pint, and 1-quart bottles of snow cone concentrate (left) and a 4-ounce bottle of 25% sucralose solution (right)

After seeing a SodaStream carbonated beverage maker, I became intrigued and bought one myself. Although I'm pleased with the device overall, some of the claimed advantages of the SodaStream don't really pan out:

SodaStream's CO₂ cost estimates may be a bit optimistic. I got 53 liters from my first CO₂ cartridge, compared to the 60 claimed. Others online report getting between about 30 and a bit over 60 liters. If you like your soda very fizzy, you'll get fewer liters out of each cartridge, thus raising costs.

• Cost savings—The cost of making soda at home begins with $0.25 per liter of soda for CO₂. This is economical if you just want carbonated water, which in my area (Rhode Island, USA) sells for $1.00 per liter or more, vs $0.25 for water carbonated with a SodaStream. If you normally drink your carbonated water with sweetening and flavors (as cola, root beer, and so on), you'd have to add $0.42 per liter for SodaStream flavorings, for a total of about $0.67 per liter. This represents a slight savings over name-brand sodas sold at regular price ($1.79 to $1.99 per 2-liter bottle, or about $0.89-$1.00 per liter). Compared to store-brand flavored sodas, though ($0.44 per liter), SodaStream's sodas are costlier. Personally, I don't think the national brands taste significantly better than the store brands, so I buy the latter whenever it's convenient. In practice, it isn't always convenient, so I end up buying a mix of the two types. I figured that SodaStream would probably cost me about the same as buying 2-liter bottles at the store in the long run.
• Carbon footprint—SodaStream claims environmental benefits for its system, and indeed, not sending a stream of plastic bottles to the recycler is likely to be a net plus for the environment. (Recycling, though better than throwing something away, still carries an environmental price.) On the other hand, the SodaStream syrups originate in Israel, which is a long way to ship the syrup to me in Rhode Island, USA—about 5,500 miles. Granted, only 1/24 the mass is shipped (500 ml of syrup makes 12 liters of soda), but my local bottlers are likely to be just a few miles away. Thus, I'm not convinced that this aspect of the SodaStream system is a net plus for the environment, and it could well be a step backward. I'd therefore like to get syrups that are made closer to home. Primo Flavorstation syrups are made in the USA, and so might be a candidate; but they're harder to find, and their selection is much smaller than SodaStream's, particularly for no-calorie flavors, which is what I drink. A related issue is exchanging the SodaStream CO₂ cartridges. These are refilled in facilities all over the world, and there's one somewhere in the US, but I don't know exactly where it is. CO₂ distribution networks exist to bring CO₂ just about everywhere (for soft drinks in restaurants, for instance), so tapping into that network is likely to be more efficient than exchanging my tanks for ones that have been refilled at a facility an unknown distance from home. I admit that I've not done a detailed analysis of these issues; it's just my guesstimate that the SodaStream's carbon footprint could be improved, at least for me in the northeastern United States.

Of course, other advantages that SodaStream claims are real—there's less lugging of bottles or cans involved, fewer bottles or cans to recycle or ship to landfills, and most of their flavors have less sodium and/or caffeine than other brands. For non-diet drinkers, most non-diet flavors have fewer calories, thanks to the mix of sugar and sucralose SodaStream uses in them. These factors, along with the "fun" aspect of it, were enough to convince me to buy my SodaStream; but I also hoped to find a way to improve on those two more suspect items. That's what this page is about, with an emphasis on the flavor syrups.

Reviewing the Alternatives

The SodaStream CO₂ canisters offer the most dramatic opportunity for cost savings. A Web search turned up the CO₂ Doctor site, the SodaMod adapter, and similar products. I won't go into these products in detail, since their own Web sites do that. In brief, you can refill your SodaStream tanks or use non-SodaStream tanks (via an adapter) that you refill locally from the same CO₂ suppliers that deliver CO₂ to restaurants. Be cautious, though; you don't want to buy a product that will introduce contaminants into your CO₂, or buy your CO₂ from an iffy source! Using one of these options can reduce the SodaStream's CO₂ cost from $0.25/liter to between $0.02/liter and $0.10/liter, depending on the option chosen and the CO₂ source; however, the up-front costs range from about $100 to about $350, depending on the option chosen. The payback period ranges from a few months to two or three years, depending on the level of soda consumption. In my opinion, it's not worth bothering with a CO₂ source swap if your household consumes less than 2 liters a day; that value puts the payback period in the 12–18 month range.

Since the syrup is costlier than the CO₂, it might seem that there's greater potential for cost savings there. The SodaStream syrups, though, are not as badly overpriced as the CO₂. Some options I've considered, and in some cases tried, include the following:

• Soda fountain syrups—You can buy soda fountain ("bag-in-box") syrups for Coca-Cola, Pepsi, and the like; however, these syrups are much less concentrated than the SodaStream syrups—typical name-brand syrups require 1:6 dilution (that is, 1 gallon of syrup makes 6 gallons of soda), whereas SodaStream's use a ratio of 1:24. If you check prices and do the math, you'll find little or no savings when using such bag-in-box syrups. They're also hard to find, and if you mail-order them you'll pay through the nose for shipping.
• Powdered drink mixes—Crystal Light and similar powdered drink mixes are another alternative. In my area, these sell for $2.24 to $2.49 for enough to make 12 quarts. Rounding quarts to liters, that works out to about $0.20 per liter—a significant savings. I've tried these, and they produce tolerable results; however, they've got a slightly unpleasant "bite" when carbonated that they don't have when mixed in plain water. I have yet to find common soda flavors, such as root beer or cola, in such drink mixes.
• MiO mixes—These aren't cost-effective; they cost $3.84 for a bottle that makes about 6 liters, if I'm guessing serving sizes correctly. (The bottles don't give much guidance on this score.) That works out to about $0.64 per liter—more than the SodaStream flavorings! Therefore, I've not tried MiO with my SodaStream. As with powdered drink mixes, I have yet to find certain common soda flavors in MiO products.
• Primo Flavorstation syrups—These are priced at about the same level as SodaStream syrups. As noted earlier, they lose out in both availability and selection, too. They're probably superior in carbon footprint for shipping, though, since they're made in the USA. (Of course, that comment applies to me and other US residents, but not necessarily to readers in some other parts of the world.)
• Homemade syrups—You can also mix your own sodas using raw ingredients. This is likely to be costlier, and it will certainly take more time, but if you're a real soda aficionado, it may be worth the effort. Check out the books Homemade Soda by Andrew Schloss and Homemade Root Beer, Soda, and Pop, by Stephen Cresswell, for more on this approach.
• Grocery store flavorings—You can find cherry, lemon, and other liquid flavorings in the grocery store. These can serve as a substitute for or supplement to the SodaStream "MyWater" product line. Similarly, you can mix in real concentrated orange juice, apple juice, and other frozen concentrates. Most of these will produce a weaker flavor, and usually a much less sweet flavor, than a traditional sweetened soda, but you might like the result. (A friend of mine does.)
• Snow cone flavorings—The final option, and the one described in the rest of this page, is using snow cone flavorings. As detailed shortly, in "Computing Costs," this option can bring the cost down to about $0.20/liter—but only when buying in fairly large quantities. On the plus side, there are lots of flavors available, including both traditional soda flavors and others, and you can choose how you want to sweeten your sodas.

If you've got a Primo Flavorstation, you can follow exactly the procedure described here, except that the Primo uses a 500 ml carbonating bottle, rather than the 1 liter size that's common with the SodaStream, so you'll need to halve the quantity of syrup you use to make your sodas.

Choosing Ingredients

If you do a Web search on "snow cone supplies" or a similar phrase, you'll find numerous suppliers, each of whom sells a dizzying number of products, mostly aimed at street-corner snow cone vendors. When you review these sites, you'll find you must choose between buying syrups vs. concentrates; and if you go with concentrates, you'll have to purchase sweetener separately. For citrus flavors, adding citric acid may be desirable.

Syrups vs. Concentrates

You can buy either syrups, which include sweeteners and must be diluted to about 1:6 for use in sodas, or concentrates, which are unsweetened and must be diluted to about 1:192 (typically in two steps, the first of which also adds a sweetener) to make sodas. For various reasons, I've opted to use concentrates:

• They're less expensive
• They're more concentrated, so there's less mass to ship
• I can create a syrup that's used with a 1:24 dilution, just like SodaStream's
• I get to choose my sweetener

If you check the snow cone sites, they provide instructions for creating a "simple syrup" using a flavor concentrate, sugar, and water. If you were to follow these instructions, you'd have to dilute the result by about 1:6 with carbonated water to make a soda. Making a more concentrated syrup using any of several 0-calorie sweeteners is possible, but this is not easily done with sugar—it's just not possible to cram enough sugar into the 42 milliliter (ml) measure that SodaStream uses for its syrups. Since I drink 0-calorie sodas, this issue doesn't concern me, but if you want to make sodas with nothing but sugar as the sweetener, you'll have to abandon the SodaStream 1:24 dilution ratio, even if you buy concentrates.

Choosing a Sweetener

In the past couple of decades, the number of available sweeteners has exploaded. For purposes of this Web page, they fall into two categories:

• Low-intensity sweeteners—Sugar (in any of its forms—table sugar, honey, etc.) is the standard against which others are measured, in terms of both taste and the intensity of the sweetener's sweetness. Some other sweeteners are of similar sweetness, such as xylitol, which has 2/3 sugar's calories but is about as sweet; and erythritol, which is about 70% as sweet as sugar but calorie-free. Because these sweeteners are more-or-less as bulky as sugar to get a given amount of sweetness, you'll have to abandon the SodaStream 1:24 dilution ratio if you use one of them as your primary sweetener. Therefore, with the exception of sugar, which I use as a comparison point on this page, I don't describe them in any depth. (You could use a mixture of a low-intensity and a high-intensity sweetener and still meet the goal of a syrup that can be diluted by 1:24.)
• High-intensity sweeteners—These products are typically 100 times or more sweeter than sugar, which makes them easy to use to create a syrup that you dilute at 1:24 to make a soda. Some of these sweeteners are 0-calorie. Others contain as many calories as sugar on a weight-by-weight basis, but because they're so sweet, you can ignore their calories for most practical purposes. Most of these substances are artificial, although one (stevia) occurs naturally.

Many sweeteners you buy in grocery stores mix ingredients from both categories. For instance, Truvia contains both erythritol and rebaudioside A (a powerful sweetener in stevia). Other grocery-store products based on high-intensity sweeteners include inactive ingredients. Such bulking-out is useful for people who want to use the sweetener for baking or even adding it to coffee or tea, but it is a detriment to soda-making, since it adds cost and makes it harder to fit the sweetener into the desired volume. For these reasons, I've focused on high-intensity sweeteners in pure or highly refined forms. Several bear mentioning:

• Acesulfame potassium—Also known as acesulfame-K or ace-K, this artificial sweetener is commonly used in diet soft drinks (including most of SodaStream's diet products) as an adjunct to another sweetener because it can help mask their deficiencies. I don't know of a good consumer-level source for this sweetener, except as one ingredient in certain product blends. It's sold under the trade names Sunett and Sweet One, but I suspect that grocery store products sold under these names are bulked-out and/or contain a mix with other sweeteners.
• Aspartame—This artificial sweetener is used in most store-bought diet sodas, and is available on eBay and probably from other online outlets. It's falling into disfavor these days because of claims of negative health effects, particularly for some individuals.
• Saccharin—This artificial sweetener was common a few decades ago, but fell into disfavor when medical research suggesting it might be a carcinogen came to light. Those claims have now been found to apply only to rats because of a peculiarity of rats' digestive systems not shared with humans. Nonetheless, saccharin is still banned in some countries, such as Canada. Many people also find that it produces a bitter metallic aftertaste, although that can be masked by blending it with other sweeteners.
• Stevia—This is the name for a genus of sweet-tasting herbs native to South and Central America, and particularly for the species Stevia rebaudiana (aka sweet leaf or sugar leaf). It's high in a family of compounds known as steviol glycosides (primarily stevioside and rebaudioside A) that are between 200 and 300 times as sweet as sugar. The name stevia has come to be associated with a large number of products, ranging from unprocessed plant leaves to refined steviol glycosides. The taste and power of these products varies greatly. Unprocessed stevia plants, as well as refined powders that include the full mix of steviol glycosides, produce a bitter aftertaste—a property of stevioside, which is present in the plant in much higher quantities than rebaudioside A, which doesn't produce the bitter aftertaste. Some sellers refine raw stevia into a powder with a much higher proportion of rebaudioside A to overcome this problem. Others add other sweeteners. All of this can make buying stevia for use in sodas tricky; if you get the wrong product, you'll taste a moment of sweetness followed by a strong bitterness, or it won't be nearly as sweet as you expect. Many eBay sellers, health food stores, and vitamin stores sell stevia, but most are extremely vague about precisely what they're selling. Note that a "no bitter aftertaste" claim is next to worthless; one product I bought made such a claim but produced an utterly undrinkable soda because of the aftertaste. Another product (KAL-branded stevia) had a much milder, but still noticeable, bitter aftertaste. This brand of stevia is tolerable by itself with most flavors, and better when blended 50/50 (or better, 25/75) with sucralose. Some stevia sellers are also devious about quantitites: They sell by bottle size in fluid ounces, but omit the word "fluid," making you think you're getting about twice what you are. One other point: Although stevia is approved as a "dietary supplement" by the US FDA, it's not approved as a sweetener. (In some countries, such as Japan, it is approved as a sweetener.) Medical research on stevia is incomplete, and has produced a wide range of competing claims, from tentative evidence of mutagenic effects to positive benefits for diabetics.
• Sucralose—This artificial sweetener is created from sugar. It's the primary sweetener in most SodaStream and Primo Flavorstation flavors (both diet and regular), and on the whole it has fewer health question marks than aspartame. You can find it easily in pure form on eBay or from other online sellers. Because it's so sweet (roughly 600 times sugar's sweetness), sucralose is often sold in a 25% solution, which makes it easier to measure.

With the exception of stevia, all of these products carry the US FDA's approval for use as sweeteners, and stevia is approved as a dietary supplement. (Regulatory approval varies by country, of course.) Table 1 summarizes the relative sweetness and prices of these high-intensity sweeteners, along with sugar for comparison. Because most products you buy in grocery stores are bulked out with inactive ingredients or low-intensity sweeteners, I've gone to eBay and other Internet sources to locate purer forms of these products. The Sweet 'n Low liquid is an exception to this rule; although a bit pricier than most, it's not unreasonable for use in sodas, if you can accept saccharin as a sweetener. Most prices in Table 1 are sampled from eBay in January of 2012. For all except sugar and the Sweet 'n Low liquid, I chose quantities equivalent to about 50–100 sugar-pounds for determining the purchase size, and therefore the price. Read the product description carefully before buying. Many sellers deliver bulked-out, mixed, or partially refined products, which won't be as sweet as noted in Table 1. Liquids are another matter, though; a 25% sucralose solution, for instance, is as concentrated as possible for a solution of this product.

Check the All About Sweeteners Web page for summary information about numerous other sweeteners.

Most of these high-intensity sweeteners are so sweet that measuring quantities for a small test batch (say, 1 liter of soda) is awkward—for instance, you need just 0.17 g (0.0060 oz) of sucralose powder to make 1 liter of soda. This is too small to measure with most kitchen scales. A 25% solution is still difficult to measure, but it can be done with a needleless syringe, available from most pharmacies for dispensing medicines to children. You can buy other sweeteners in liquid solution, too. You can make your own solution from any of these sweeteners, of course, but I don't know how long they'll keep in that form.

The sweetness values given in Table 1 are approximate, and different sources provide slightly different estimates. I've used the values in this table for subsequent cost computations on this page, but you might want to adjust quantities to your own taste. The Approximate Price per Sugar-Pound column gives the cost of the sweetener that's equivalent to a pound of sugar bought at a supermarket. If you're looking for the best deal, this is the column to watch.

Some snow cone suppliers offer a sugar-free sweetening mix. I tried one, which was a combination of acesulfame-K, aspartame, and fillers. It produced a geyser of foam when added to carbonated water and the resulting soda wasn't as sweet as I'd expected. The price was also relatively high—about $0.27 per liter of soda.

Choosing Snow Cone Flavorings

Turning attention to the flavor concentrates, a number of outfits sell these, in bottles ranging in size from 4 ounces to 1 gallon. Given the dilution ratio of 1:192, one quart of concentrate produces 182 liters of soda. Thus, if you're like me, quart bottles (which usually sell for $8–$10) are about as big as you'll want. Fortunately, the concentrate lasts a long time—one seller claims a 2-year shelf life, although the bottles I got from another are marked with an expiration date less than a year from the purchase date. (Ask about this detail before ordering if it's important to you!) Those that mention it say their concentrates do not require refrigeration.

Remember to order concentrate, not syrup! (Unless of course you want to pay more for something that's ready-mixed and would have to be mixed into your soda at a 1:6 ratio.)

I've checked product offerings from several suppliers (some of which also seem to be manufacturers, although some clearly aren't), and ordered from five. The eight I've researched are:

• 1-800-Shaved-Ice—This site carries the Hawaii's Finest brand, and offers concentrates in sizes down to 4 fluid ounces ("sample" size; limit 4 samples per order). They're pricier than most of their competitors. Despite this fact, I bought four sample-size flavors from them for my initial test run. Most of the Hawaii's Finest flavors were good, but some of them seemed a bit "thinner" than other brands—I needed more of the concentrate to achieve the desired flavor than if I'd used a competing brand.
• Heavenly Snow Cones—This site carries four brands (Heavenly, Parasol, Ralph's, and Sno Ball), but only two (Heavenly and Ralph's) are available in quarts or pints. I placed an order for several Heavenly and one Ralph's flavor from them.
• Koldkiss—You can buy Koldkiss-branded concentrate in liter quantities from this site. I've not bought from them, so I can't comment on customer service or concentrate quality.
• Magic Ice Products—This company sells its own brand of flavors in pint quantities. (Their ordering page for concentrates is hard to find from the main page. As I write, this direct link works.) I haven't yet ordered from them.
• Prairie Moon—Unlike the other suppliers mentioned here, this one markets its wares to home soda makers, although the Rio-brand syrup it sells is made for snow cones. Prairie Moon sells in quart 6-packs and in single and multiple 4-ounce bottles. In quarts, it's pricier than most others mentioned here, but the 4-ounce bottles are a better value than the 4-ounce sample sizes from other vendors. (The 4-ounce bottles are still pricier than the quarts on a per-ounce basis, though.) I've bought one six-pack of 4-ounce bottles from them. My order arrived promptly and included a miniature measuring cup that you can use to measure small quantities (2.5–30 ml, and equivalent quantities in several other units).
• Ralph's SnoBall Supply—You can buy quarts, pints, and 4-ounce bottles of Ralph's brand from this site. I've ordered several flavors from them (see below). They responded promptly to an e-mail I sent to them with questions.
• The Snow Cone Machine—This site carries three brands (Hawaii's Finest, in quarts; Snowie, in pints and 4-ounce bottles; and Eee-Zee, in 10-packs of 4-ounce pouches). My latest order was from this firm, and included both Hawaii's Finest and Snowie products. It arrived in two boxes, which were shipped from each of the two original manufacturers.
• Snow Wizard—This site offers their own brand of concentrate, in a claimed 140 flavors—but I didn't count to verify that figure! They sell in quarts, but I saw no reference to smaller sizes. Their site has no on-line ordering; you'll need to call a phone number to order.
• Zatarain's—This company sells a variety of food products, mostly with a New Orleans theme. One specific product is a root beer concentrate, which I'm told is available in some Louisiana grocery stores, although I haven't seen it in my home state of Rhode Island.

Judging the flavor of a snow cone syrup from its name can be tricky. Some are obvious, but some aren't—what's "Batman" or "Shrek?" You can find descriptions for some brands' flavors online: Hawaii's Finest here, Ralph's here, and Snow Wizard's here (move your mouse pointer over a flavor name to see its description).

Note that no flavor could reach 10 points in my test because of the off flavors of the artificial sweeteners I used. Also, I have no doubt that these snow cone concentrates all use artificial flavors that can't match their natural counterparts—but some are pretty good nonetheless. As a comparison, most national-brand diet flavors (Coke, Pepsi, Sprite, etc.) merit an 8 or 9 on my scale, although some earn just 7. Sweetened with sugar, some would rate a 10. If you're a stickler for real sugar taste, you might want to drop a point or two on my ratings, unless of course you plan to use sugar in your own mixes.

Of course, descriptions can sometimes be imperfect. I have by no means tested all the available flavors, but some I have tried, including my ratings on a 10-point scale and, when applicable, comparison to SodaStream flavors, are:

• Butterscotch—Like caramel (see below), butterscotch is an unusual flavor for sodas, but one that works surprisingly well, based on the Rio-brand sample I tried from Prairie Moon. I rate it at 8 of 10.
• Caramel—I ordered this flavor from Ralph's, mainly with the intent of mixing it with other flavors. I've since used enough of it that I've ordered more Snowie-brand caramel from the Snow Cone Machine. Mixed by itself, it makes a surprisingly good soda, and I've been drinking it that way almost as much as mixed with other flavors. My favorite mixture is 1 part cherry to 2 parts caramel, but a mixture of 1 part caramel to 2 parts green apple is also quite good, as is a 1:1 mixture with root beer. I give it a 9 out of 10 by itself, from either vendor.
• Cherry—I ordered the clear version of cherry from Ralph's, mainly with the intent of mixing it with other flavors. It has a strong candy-like cherry flavor, which is perhaps a bit overwhelming on its own but it works well with certain other flavors, such as cola and caramel. By itself, I give it 7 of 10 points.
• Citrus paradise—This flavor, available from Ralph's, is described as having a mix of citrus flavors. Mixed without citric acid, it was pretty bad—I give it just 2 of 10 points when mixed that way, because of a strong chemical taste. When I added citric acid, though, the chemical taste became less noticeable, and the sourness of the citric acid helped, too. Still, the flavor is still far from my favorite. I give it 5 of 10 points with 0.5 g of citric acid per liter.
• Cola—I ordered Ralph's cola. Flavored with sucralose, I give it a 7 of 10, with the caveat that it needs about 10–25% more sweetener than other flavors to taste right. It might also benefit from the citric acid treatment, although the boost isn't enough to raise it's point score above 7. As I wasn't 100% satisfied with Ralph's cola, I also tried the offering from Heavenly, which is a little better, perhaps as high as 8 of 10. Hawaii's Finest produced the best cola, at a high 8, although it needed a bit more concentrate than the others to taste right. (This version is the only one I'd dare place on a Pepsi-to-Coke scale, and it's more Pepsi-like.) All of these products are caffeine-free. I give SodaStream's caffeine-free diet cola 7 of 10, and Primo's caffeinated diet cola 8 of 10. I give the diet caffeine-free versions of both Coke and Pepsi a low 9.
• Grape—I tried this flavor from Hawaii's Finest, Rio, and Heavenly, with similar comments for all three. They all rate 8 of 10 points. The flavor is more candy-like than like real grapes, but that's typical of grape sodas.
• Green apple—All suppliers offer some version of an apple flavor. Ralph's green apple flavor, which resembles a Granny Smith apple, gets 6 of 10, mainly because of some chemical "off" flavors. This flavor works better in combination with caramel. A ratio of about 2:1 (twice as much green apple as caramel) works well, IMHO. This helps moderate the chemical "off" flavor of the apple and results in something akin to a candy apple. (Some vendors offer a separate "candy apple" flavor, which is presumably a mixture of these two flavors.)
• Hawaiian Tropic—This flavor from Snowie produces a pale red soda with a flavor that resembles a mixture of berries and cherries. (Perhaps it's based on a tropical fruit with which I'm not very familiar.) I give it a low 8 on my 10-point scale.
• Honey dew—Most suppliers offer this flavor, which is supposed to resemble honey dew melon. I thought it might work well when mixed with various citrus flavors, so I ordered some from Ralph's. By itself, it's got a relatively mild taste that earns 7 of 10 points, its main problem being a somewhat artificial chemical sense to the taste.
• Lemon—I bought this Rio-brand flavor from Prairie Moon in the hopes of using it as the base flavor to re-create something akin to Mountain Dew. By itself, it's an OK flavor, with or without added citric acid—I give it 7 of 10 either way. I've tried mixing this with honey dew and orange, and both combinations are good, but so far I haven't produced a Mountain Dew taste-alike.
• Lemon-lime—All of the snow cone companies seem to sell green-colored lemon-lime concentrates. I've tried samples from both Hawaii's Finest and Heavenly. Both are stronger on the lime side, whereas 7-Up and Sprite have a more balanced or lemon-leaning flavor. Both snow cone flavors are similar to some store-brand lemon-lime sodas in this respect. Without citric acid, the versions I tried had a rather candy-like flavor that lingered a bit too long, but adding citric acid produced a more citrus-like flavor that didn't linger as much. Without citric acid, I give them only 7 of 10 points, but the score goes up to 8 when citric acid is added. If a flavor closer to 7-Up or Sprite is desired, mixing separate lemon and lime flavors, or adding lemon to lemon-lime, should enable fine-tuning the flavor. I rate SodaStream's lemon-lime at about 7 of 10, but the overall flavor is distinctly different—more lemony and with more citrus feel than the snow cone flavor without citric acid.
• Orange—One of the reasons I've placed orders with five different suppliers in less than a year is that I've been dissatisfied with the orange flavors that all have provided. Hawaii's Finest is the worst, with a taste that's almost identical to Ralph's "citrus paradise." Ralph's "orange delight" is better—4 of 10 without citric acid, 6 of 10 with citric acid. Rio's orange gets the same scores as Ralph's, but with a taste that's qualitatively different. Heavenly's orange is similar to Rio's. SodaStream's orange also gets only 6 of 10 in my book, because of chemical off flavors. By comparison, I give Sunkist orange an 8 of 10 and Orange Crush a 7 of 10.
• Pineapple—I bought this flavor from Heavenly because I thought it might work as part of a Mountain Dew-alike mixture, but alas, that hasn't worked out. By itself, this flavor is fairly bad (5 of 10) because of chemical off tastes.
• Root beer—Hawaii's Finest did a very good job with its root beer; I give it a score of 9 of 10 points, which is a bit higher than I'd give SodaStream's root beer (8 of 10). Hawaii's Finest has a slightly more subtle flavor, and the SodaStream root beer has a more syrupy feel to it. The Hawaii's Finest root beer flavor, however, is thinner than most of the snow cone flavors I've tried, so more of it is required to make a good-tasting root beer, which of course raises the cost. I also tried Rio's root beer (from Prairie Moon). It's about on a par with the SodaStream root beer (8 of 10), lacking the subtlety of the Hawaii's Finest version of this flavor. As both of these were sample sizes, I've ordered root beer from Heavenly, as well. It also rates an 8 of 10, but is perhaps just a little better than Rio's version, with a hint of a vanilla flavor that works well in this product.
• Shrek—At least two suppliers offer a flavor of this name. Ralph's, from whom I ordered, describes it as a combination of berry and citrus flavors, which sounded like a promising basis for a soda. It's a rather unappealing blue-green color. (What'd you expect, given the name?) The description is accurate, as far as it goes, but it's hard to pick out specific flavors, except for a bit of a chemical "off" flavor. The berry flavors dominate over anything citrus-like, and the overall result is rather overpowering. I found my liking for the flavor dropped with every glass I drank. I give it 5 out of 10, but perhaps somebody fonder of berries would enjoy it more than I.
• Tiger blood—All of the suppliers offer a flavor with this name (or "Tiger's Blood"), although its description varies. The version I bought from Ralph's is clearly a mixture of coconut and watermelon flavors, which works reasonably well in a soda, although I personally would prefer more watermelon and less coconut flavor. I rate it at 7 of 10.
• Tropical Fruit—I bought this Hawaii's Finest flavor on a whim. I found that it bore a rough resemblance to Shrek, in that it's a vaguely fruity-berry flavor. It had a more appealing color than Shrek and wasn't nearly as overpowering to my sense of taste, though. I give it a 7 out of 10.
• Wedding cake—Most snow cone vendors offer a flavor of this name. The variety I tried, from Prairie Moon, resembles vanilla cake icing. It's far from a typical soda flavor, but it works reasonably well. I rate it at 7 of 10.

Every supplier I checked carries various traditional soda flavors, including cola, orange, lemon-lime (universally colored green), and grape. Most carry root beer and cream soda. One (Ralph's) carries a flavor they claim resembles Dr. Pepper. None that I found carries anything they claimed resembles Mountain Dew, although all have a few citrus flavors, and perhaps a mix starting with lemon could get close to the right taste. All have numerous flavors that are rare in sodas, such as apple, banana, spearmint, and watermelon. Some, such as cake, bubble gum, and chocolate flavors, are very far off the carbonated beverage flavor mainstream—but you can always try them if you're curious!

Citric acid is a naturally-occurring substance that produces a sour flavor. It's common in citrus fruits, among other foods. I've found that many of the snow cone concentrates for citrus flavors (lemon-lime and orange) typically lack the sour citrus flavor, tasting more like citrus-flavored candy than citrus-flavored sodas. Adding a small amount of citric acid can modify the taste and feel of the soda. There may also be a benefit to using it in at least some non-citrus-fruit flavors, such as cola.

In my tests, the amount of citric acid required to produce the desired results is quite small—about 0.5 g (1/12 tsp) per liter of soda. My initial test batch of citric acid was 8 ounces (227 g) and cost $6.75 shipped. Costs per gram go down for larger quantities, of course. Thus, the cost to add citric acid works out to just $0.01 or $0.02 per liter.

As with sweeteners, eBay is a convenient way to find sellers of citric acid, although I'm sure other sources are available. I've seen reports that some grocery stores sell it as "sour salt," often in the kosher or canning supplies aisle, but my local grocery stores don't have it. I've also been told that it's used in Middle Eastern cooking, and so can be found in markets catering to such cuisine. Some snow cone vendors sell citric acid, with the intent that it be combined with sodium benzoate for a preservative effect on sugar-based syrups. Wherever you buy it, be sure it's food grade.

Citric acid produces a bit of foaming action when added to carbonated water, so if you add more than 0.5 g per liter, be prepared to cap your carbonating bottle quickly.

Before placing an order, you might want to know what it will cost to go this route. Typical prices for concentrate are $8 to $14 per quart, $7 to $10 for pints, and $3 to $4 for 4-ounce bottles. Shipping will be expensive—count on an additional 30% to 70%, depending on how much you order and the distance. Depending on these factors, flavoring costs are likely to range from $0.05 to $0.30 per liter. Obviously, at the high end you won't be saving much if any money over SodaStream's flavors, once you add in the cost of sweetener; but if you can buy a few pints or quarts at a time, the total cost (concentrate plus sweetener) will fall in the $0.20-$0.30 range. Most or all of the ingredients will also travel less than the SodaStream bottles, and what does travel will mass less, which all adds up to being better for the environment.

If you want to check the prices yourself, here's a formula to compute the price per liter of soda, given the prices of the flavoring and sweetener and the sweetness of the sweetener:

C = (S_c ÷ S_q ÷ S_s × 3.523) + (F_c ÷ F_q ÷ 5.675)

• S_c is the sweetener's cost in dollars, including shipping
• S_q is the quantity of sweetener that S_c buys, in ounces
• S_s is the sweetener's sweetness compared to sugar (in Table 1's Sweetness column)
• F_c is the flavoring's cost in dollars, including shipping
• F_q is the quantity of flavoring that F_c buys, in ounces

C, the result, is the cost of enough syrup to make one liter of soda, which you can compare to $0.42 for SodaStream's syrup. (You'll have to add your carbonation costs, such as $0.25/liter for SodaStream's CO₂, to get your total soda cost.) This formula assumes you use the quantities listed in the next section, "Using Snow Cone Flavorings." If you expect to want "thicker" or "thinner" sodas, you can adjust the cost up or down appropriately.

Table 2 presents three example scenarios, each corresponding to purchases of various sizes—enough to make approximately 1000 liters, 340 liters, and 135 liters of soda, respectively. Costs are estimates that include shipping—but shipping costs vary depending on your and the seller's location, particularly for the snow cone concentrates. Each ounce of sucralose solution makes about 43 liters of soda and each ounce of concentrate makes about 5.69 liters of soda. I recommend estimating your needs based on a year or so. If the Table 2 quantities were for one year's consumption, this would work out to 2.7 liters per day, 0.9 liters per day, and 0.4 liters per day for the 1000-, 340-, and 135-liter orders, respectively.

As you can see, most of the price increase for buying in smaller quantities is from the snow cone concentrate; the price of the sucralose is fairly stable, particularly above the level of an 8-ounce bottle of liquid. Go ahead and research prices for the quantities you feel comfortable buying.

For flavors that might benefit from citric acid, add another $0.01–$0.02 per liter of soda, depending on your cost for the citric acid and the amount you decide to add.

Once you've received your ingredients, you can make sodas in several ways. To start, consider making 500 ml of a syrup that can be diluted using the same 1:24 ratio that SodaStream uses. You could put the resulting syrup in an empty SodaStream bottle and use it exactly as you'd use the SodaStream syrup. To do so, follow these steps, stirring to thoroughly mix or dissolve each item:

1. Start with about 350 ml (roughly 1.5 cups) water; the precise amount isn't important, but be sure to start at a small enough quantity that adding the sweetener and concentrate won't put you over 500 ml.
2. Optional: Add 6 g (roughly 1 tsp) citric acid. This is most likely to be beneficial for citrus flavors, and perhaps some others such as cola.

   The teaspoon measures for the powdered sweeteners are very approximate and may vary depending on the consistency (and therefore the density) of the powder. The value for stevia is based on a density measurement of a stevia sample I purchased, but the rest are based on density data I found online.

3. Add sweetener—one of the following:
   • 7.5 g (0.26 oz; 2.1 tsp) aspartame (powder)
   • 4.0 g (0.14 oz) saccharin (powder or tablets)
   • 150 ml (2/3 cup) saccharin (Sweet 'n Low 2.67% solution)
   • 4.8 g (0.17 oz; 1.9 tsp) stevia (refined powder)
   • 8.0 ml (1.6 tsp) sucralose (25% solution)
   • 2.0 g (0.071 oz; 0.5 tsp) sucralose (powder)
   • 1.2 kg (2.6 lb; 6 cups) sugar or xylitol—but note that there's no way to cram 6 cups (1420 ml) of sweetener into a 500 ml volume, so if you want to use sugar or xylitol, you'll have to adjust this recipe to use a larger volume of solution, and then mix more of it into your carbonated water to make a soda
   • Any combination of the above, with quantities adjusted proportionally
4. Add 62.5 ml (2.11 fl. oz.; 1/4 cup) snow cone flavoring
5. Add water to make a total volume of 500 ml (2.1 cups)

You can use this syrup in the same proportions you'd use your SodaStream mixes—use a SodaStream bottle cap to measure it or measure out 42 ml (1.42 fl. oz., or just under 3 Tbsp) of syrup per liter of soda.

If you want to do a test run with a smaller quantity to start with, you can adjust these values down. For instance, you can divide all the values by 12 to make 1 liter of soda. Note, however, that the sweeteners (except for sugar and xylitol) are used in such small quantities that they'll be difficult to measure for a 1-liter batch of soda. You can use a jeweller's scale (with precision of 0.1 g or better) to do the job. (You can find these on eBay for $10 or so.) Alternatively, you could mix up a solution of sweetener only—say, just as above, but omitting the snow cone flavoring—and then add 42 ml of it and 5.2 ml (1.1 tsp) of flavoring concentrate to the carbonated water.

I'm not sure of the shelf life of a solution like the one described here or how it could be extended with preservatives. If you mix such a solution, I recommend keeping it refrigerated, and mixing no more than you'd use in a month or so, just to be safe. (My 25% sucralose solution indicates that it includes preservatives, FWIW.)

Another option is to add the sweetener directly to the snow cone concentrate—essentially omitting the water from the above recipe and scaling up the sweetener based on your concentrate volume. You could then add about 5.2 ml (1.1 tsp) of sweetened concentrate to each liter of carbonated water.

The quantities specified are equivalent to making the "simple syrup" described on the snow cone Web sites and then diluting it 1:6 to make soda. You can adjust the quantities, or the dilution of the final product, to make a "thinner" or "thicker" soda, as you see fit. You can also, of course, independently adjust the amounts of sweetener and concentrate to suit your tastes. You can even use a blend of two or more sweeteners, if you like.

Overall, I'm happy with my experiments using snow cone concentrates to make sodas with my SodaStream. Costs are lower than for SodaStream's syrups and I can choose some exotic (but often good!) flavors. At their best, the snow cone flavors can taste slightly better than the SodaStream flavors, but at their worst, they can be pretty dreadful. The cost to try a flavor is relatively high—about $4 for a 4-ounce sample, if the vendor even offers one. Thus, there's some gambling involved in trying new flavors.

Of course, there's also the time involved in all of this—checking out Web sites, placing orders, mixing everything together, and cleaning up aftewards. The initial research is the biggest of these time costs, though, and if you're thinking of going this route, it's my hope that this Web page will help you minimize that investment in time.

If you have problems with or comments about this Web page, please e-mail me at rodsmith@rodsbooks.com. Thanks.

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