Mark's Adventures in SodaStreaming, Part IV: The Quest for Pineapple/Orange Peace

Many moons ago, I enjoyed many of Faygo's soda flavors, including (but not limited to) Redpop, cream soda, Rock & Rye, 60/40 (their version of Squirt), root beer, fruit punch, and the subject of this week's blog entry, Pineapple Orange.  As you may know, 14 years ago, I stopped drinking regular sodas* and switched to sugar-free alternatives such as diet sodas and liquid water enhancers.  Sadly, this meant that I could not drink Faygo anymore--not because I didn't want to, but because (as I mentioned a couple weeks ago) the only artificial sweetener Faygo uses in its diet sodas is aspartame, and by itself, aspartame leaves an aftertaste I really dislike.  On top of that, I don't believe Faygo has ever made a diet Pineapple Orange soda to begin with.

Fortunately, here in the year 2024, orange- and pineapple-flavored drink mixes are readily available under the Crush and Sunkist brands.  Crush-branded mixes are made by Juicy Mixes, LLC, a company I've praised for its A&W root beer and Canada Dry ginger ale mixes.  Sunkist brand mixes are made by the Jel Sert Company.  This gave me a few opportunities to make sugar-free pineapple/orange soda--one packet of orange mix, one packet of pineapple mix, dissolve the two packets in around 45 milliliters of water, then carefully pour that mixture into one liter of carbonated water.

Pineapple Sunkist / Orange Crush: I still tasted a lot of the Pineapple Sunkist, which tastes more like an energy drink than a soda.  Also, the coloring of the Orange Crush seemed to overpower the yellow coloring in the Pineapple Sunkist, meaning it looked more like an orange drink to anyone who didn't know beforehand that it's a mix of pineapple and orange flavors.

Pineapple Crush / Orange Crush: Thankfully, Pineapple Crush doesn't taste as much like an energy drink as Pineapple Sunkist, so I felt like I made some progress.  But once again, the orange coloring in the Orange Crush is still overpowering. 

Pineapple Crush / Orange Sunkist: We've got a winner here--I liked the taste of the Orange Sunkist drink mix better than the Orange Crush one (which is consistent with how I felt after trying Diet Orange Sunkist and Diet Orange Crush as sodas back in 2010--I liked the taste of the Diet Orange Sunkist better then, too).  And even with the caffeine from the Orange Sunkist, it doesn't taste like an energy drink.  I'm so happy with this result that I'm not even going to try mixing the two Sunkists.

Earlier this week, I came across an unexpected find: A bottle of SodaStream Classics Zero Lemonade on the clearance rack at one of my local Kroger stores.  That location has been undergoing a rearrangement over the last few weeks, and long story short, this had led to more markdowns than usual.  This leads me to share not one, but two reviews of this syrup:

By itself, this lemonade is the most tasteless SodaStream syrup I have had to date. I don't know how anyone could rave about it.  What someone needs to do is go back in time to 1980 so they can create a sugar-free lemonade with the taste of the Minute Maid lemonade-flavored powdered drink mix that existed back then.  Sweeteners: Sucralose and Stevia.  I don't like the former and I detest the latter, and for a while, I wished I had read the label, in which case I would not have bought it.  But since I did buy it, I decided to try blending it with another syrup.

Blending about 60% Starry and 40% SodaStream Classics Zero Lemonade: To my surprise, this blend is a hit for me on two levels: First, it mitigates the aftertaste of the sweeteners in the SodaStream Lemonade; second, it mitigates the sweetness of the Starry.  The end result: A refreshing taste I didn't get from either syrup on its own.  Don't get me wrong, I still like 7-Up better as far as SodaStream-made lemon/lime sodas go, but this blend makes me think, "I didn't waste my money on the Starry syrup or the SodaStream Lemonade syrup after all."

Next time: I don't know when "next time" will be, since I've gone through a lot of the syrups and powdered mixes that I wanted to try, and I'd like to use them up before I buy any new ones.  But down the road, I want to try:

• Wyler's Light Island Punch (another powdered packet mix that I've read works well with SodaStream)
• Ralph's Sodamix in a few sugar-free flavors, like Old Fashioned Cream Soda, Classic Orange Vanilla Cola, Orange Cream Soda, and Dr Fizz.  They are pricey compared to SodaStream's syrups, and they are sweetened with sucralose and stevia, so I'm holding out for a sale on these syrups.
• Dad's Root Beer (another powdered mix, which I've also seen on Amazon and which gets good revews)
• Dad's Cream Soda (I've seen this on Amazon, too, but it generally gets bad reviews)

Also, in the future, I'll have to refill my SodaStream CO2 canisters.  I'll share that experience with you when it happens.

Mark's Adventures in SodaStreaming, Part III: Brutally Fizzin' Frutal

Since every product profiled below is a powder, I have to reiterate this tip about powders:  Liquefy your powder before adding it to the carbonated water by stirring it into 40 to 50 milliliters of water.  For example, if you are using a one-liter bottle, then you would need to mix two packets with that small amount of water.  You can use the cap from a SodaStream syrup bottle, or an old prescription vial or bottle, to mix the powder and water in prior to adding it to the carbonated water.

Last month, while searching for flavors that I could possibly make sodas from, I went on Amazon, and I came across this variety pack of fruit-flavored drink mix packets from Frutal, a Mexican manufacturer.  Since their flavors were so different from those that I had already tried, I thought I'd give their flavors a try.

Frutal Citrus Punch: I really like this flavor--the smell and taste remind me favorably of Orange Pineapple Tang.*  I will enjoy it with plain cold water.  But do not mix this into carbonated water--even after liquefying it, once I added it to the carbonated water, it fizzed like crazy--yes, much worse than Strawberry Sunkist did--and it spilled all over the place.

*Orange Pineapple Tang helped me through some nasty flus and colds in the 2000s, so it became part of my cold/flu starter kit (alongside DayQuil and NyQuil), but a few years ago, Kraft/Heinz stopped making that flavor of Tang.  Now, in Frutal Citrus Punch, I've found a drink mix that tastes like Orange Pineapple Tang.  As long as I remember to take some vitamin C with it, I should be fine next time I get a cold or the flu.

Frutal Summer Colada: I like this piña colada flavor as well, and I'd mix that with some nice cold water as well.  But with carbonated water, there was a big mess.  So, I'll put off testing the other two Frutal flavors (Tropical Berries, Tangy Limeade) with carbonated water, pending a comparison of the list of ingredients in their flavors vs. the ingredients in mixes that don't come anywhere near making such a mess.

Instead, I decided to try two of the other drink mixes made by Juicy Mixes, LLC:

Canada Dry: Awesome! Another home run by Juicy Mixes LLC!  And yes, I prefer this over the SodaStream version.  As I said a week ago regarding the A&W drink mix, why settle for the store brand if the national brand is available--and cheaper, too!  (No, seriously.  Consider this: SodaStream's generic syrups, like Dr Pete, ginger ale and orange, generally go for $6 these days, and each bottle of syrup makes about 9 liters.  That's 67 cents a liter.  Now, those little 6-packet boxes of Canada Dry, 7-Up, and Sunkist, I found those for $1 at Dollar General.  6 packets make three liters, so that comes out to 33 cents a liter.)

7-Up: I prefer this over the SodaStream Starry syrup.  It's not as sweet as Starry was.  But those two sodas have me thinking about what it is that I want from a lemon-lime soda to begin with.  When I was younger, meaning from the 1980s to around 2015, I preferred to rotate between soda flavors--cola, lemon-lime, orange, root beer, Dr Pepper, and a few Faygo flavors (e.g., Rock & Rye, Redpop, Cream Soda).  At that time, I preferred 7-Up over Sprite and Slice, but I couldn't articulate my reasoning any better than "I just like the taste of 7-Up better".  When I dropped regular sodas in 2010, I found I liked Sprite Zero, but I couldn't figure out why beyond "I like the taste of that better than Diet 7-Up or Diet Sierra Mist." Bottom line, I prefer that my lemon-lime soda taste crisp rather than sweet.  Both times, I  was drinking lemon-lime sodas for the sake of variety.  More recently, however, I don't drink that kind of soda as often.  I lean more towards flavored colas, Dr Pepper, root beer, and any limited edition zero-sugar sodas that come out 

Next time: Now that I have Orange Crush, Pineapple Crush, Orange Sunkist and Pineapple Sunkist, I will try to see which drink mix pairing can best replace Faygo's Pineapple Orange flavor.  Pineapple Orange was one of the Faygo flavors I enjoyed prior to switching to zero sugar sodas 14 years ago, especially because it is a flavor that (as far as I know) no one else makes.  (Yes, Fanta and Sunkist make pineapple sodas and orange sodas, so I could mix those together, but try finding zero sugar versions of pineapple sodas at your local supermarket.)

Mark's Adventures in SodaStreaming, Part II

This time around, I decided to test out some drink mix powders, which I found at places like Dollar Tree, Dollar General, Big Lots and stores like that.  As I said last week, I didn't like the idea of mixing them with plain tap water, but SodaStream-carbonated water, that's another story.

I have to start with this Pro Tip for powders: Liquefy your powder before adding it to the carbonated water by stirring it into 40-50 mL of water.  For example, if you are using a one-liter bottle, then you would need to mix two packets with that water.  One YouTuber even resorts to using boiled water to liquefy his powders.  What I've been doing is, I've been using an old prescription vial, because it's similar in size to a SodaStream syrup cap, and mixing the powder and water in that.

So here are the results I've gotten from my first four powders:

A&W Root Beer: Home run!  I knew there was a reason why I didn't want to try the SodaStream root beer syrup, and this is it.  Why settle for the store brand when you can have the national brand?  This powder may be my best justification for having a SodaStream.  Sweetener: Aspartame and acesulfame potassium.

Orange Crush: Great! Note to self: Juicy Mixes LLC rocks! (They make both this one and the A&W Root Beer powder, and both tasted like they really care about getting the flavor of the original soda just right.)  Sweetener: Sucralose and acesulfame potassium.

Strawberry Sunkist: I've been trying to find a good sugar-free replacement for Faygo Redpop, and this could be the one (pending a future taste test of Strawberry Crush).*  While I don't put it on the same plateau as A&W or Orange Crush, it is refreshing and delicious, although I do notice an aftertaste, which comes from the... Sweetener: Mainly aspartame, with 2% or less acesuflame potassium.  WARNING: When adding Strawberry Sunkist, even in its liquefied form, the reaction between it and the carbonated water was particularly volatile, even more so than the root beer.  My first attempt at making Strawberry Sunkist failed because I added too much, too quickly, meaning I got to realize that volatility the hard way.  Thus, add this one more slowly than you would others.

Pineapple Sunkist: The flavor is kind of strong.  Maybe it's because I've had a few pineapple-flavored energy drinks recently (e.g. Monster Ultra Golden Pineapple; Monster Reserve White Pineapple; 5 Hour Energy Pineapple Splash).  Down the road, I'lll try mixing it with an orange mix (e.g. one packet of this with one packet of either Orange Sunkist or Orange Crush, to try to imitate Faygo's Pineapple Orange soda).  Sweetener: Mainly sucralose, with 2% or less aspartame and acesulfame potassium.

*Once upon a time, Faygo Redpop was one of my favorite sodas.  I even remember trying to make it into a Thanksgiving Day tradition at my parents' house (inpsired by this commercial featuring M*A*S*H actor Jamie Farr).  I have to say "was" because, after switching from regular (high fructose corn syrup- or sugar-sweetened) sodas to artificially sweetened ones, I discovered that I don't like Faygo's diet sodas.  Why?  To this day, Faygo sweetens its diet sodas with aspartame and only aspartame, and aspartame, by itself, leaves an aftertaste that I don't like.  While other soda manufacturers have vastly improved how they sweeten their zero-sugar sodas, Faygo's diet sodas are stuck in an early 1980s time warp.  Ever since then, I've been searching for a good diet strawberry soda.

Next week: Frutal drink mix powder packets--amazing Amazon find, epic fail, or a mix of the two?

2+ weeks: 7-Up, Canada Dry, and Orange Sunkist.  We'll see how they stack up against three flavors I've already tested (Starry, SodaStream Diet Ginger Ale, and Orange Crush).  Also, I'll mix one packet of whichever loses between Orange Crush and Orange Sunkist with one packet of Pineapple Sunkist.

Mark's Adventures in SodaStreaming, Part I

Back in April, I lucked into getting a free SodaStream machine with one reusable bottle.  I promised my Facebook friends that soon, I would bring them reviews of various SodaStream syrups.**

I bought four different syrups (Target had a 40% off sale on various SodaStream products at that time).  After some trial-and-error*, here's what I think of each one:

SodaStream Diet Dr Pete (their version of Diet Dr Pepper) - not bad, but I had to add a little more syrup than the instructions call for to boost the flavor.  (The instructions for the syrups say that for one liter, you should fill it up to the second line in the cap.)  The first time I tried it, I followed the instructions, and I thought the end result was a little weak to be called a Dr Pepper clone.  Sweetener: Sucralose, which disappointed me somewhat because it is not my preferred artificial sweetener (I prefer a blend of aspartame and acesulfame potassium).  When I ditched sugary sodas for zero sugar versions in 2010, I tried just about every such soda I could find.  I remember disliking Pepsi ONE, and that was the only diet soda I tried that had sucralose.  Going back to the Diet Dr Pete, I found that the sucralose left a sweet aftertaste that, while I didn't mind it so much with this flavor as I did with Pepsi, I'd rather do without it.

Pepsi Zero Sugar - I wanted to try one cola syrup, and I had three to choose from (Pepsi Zero Sugar, formerly known as Pepsi MAX; Diet Pepsi; and SodaStream's own diet cola).  I decided on Pepsi Zero Sugar, and I was not disappointed at all.  I plan to add lime- and cherry-flavored bubly drops in future attempts.  Sweetener: Acesulfame potassium, aspartame _and_ sucralose.  Yes, all three appear in the ingredients list for this syrup.

Starry Zero Sugar - Without any bubly drops, I like it, even though I wonder how it would compare to Sprite Zero Sugar (the lemon-lime diet soda I liked best when taste-testing various diet sodas 14 years ago).  After adding a couple lime bubly drops to 8 ounces of Starry, it tastes more refreshing and not quite as sweet.  Sweetener: Sucralose and acesulfame potassium.

SodaStream Diet Ginger Ale - I liked it, but once again, I had to add a little more syrup than the instructions called for.  In the end, I still like the taste of Canada Dry better, so I'll be on the lookout for Canada Dry drink mix packets.  Sweetener: Acesulfame potassium and sucralose.

Coming soon: I'm going to try some powders next, starting off with A&W Root Beer, Orange Crush, Strawberry Sunkist, and Pineapple Sunkist.  I would never have tried those mixes with plain water, but SodaStream could be a game changer.  Then, from there, batten down the hatches!  I'm going to try four different Frutal flavors (that's a powdered drink mix made in Mexico that I found on Amazon)--Tangy Limeade, Citrus Punch, Summer Colada, and Tropical Berries.

*All that trial-and-error yielded some learning experiences:

• Pro tip #1: Like the Girl Scouts say, be prepared.  Have that syrup cap filled up to before you start carbonating the water, so that once you've finished fizzing it up, boom, you can add the syrup right after taking the bottle out of the machine.  The last thing you want is to fuss with opening a new bottle of syrup and then getting just the right amount into the cap while so much valuable fizz is escaping from your bottle.
• Pro tip #2: When the top light (the one with the three drops) lights up, keep carbonating for a couple more seconds.  That is, unless you don't mind soda that goes flat in short order.
• Pro tip #3 (which some of you already know): Pour the syrup down the side of the bottle, not right down through the top.
• Pro tip #4: Tighten that cap on your reusable Sodastream bottle like hell.  Take full advantage of that silicone seal on the inside of the cap!  Otherwise, the fizz will slowly escape and the soda will go flat overnight.
• Pro tip #5: You probably know this if you've used SodaStream syrups before, but always refrigerate the syrup after opening.  (I mention this one anyway because I didn't know about this instruction until I noticed it on the back of the first syrup I used.)

Two Issues I Have With SodaStream:

1. The machine is expensive, the CO2 canisters are expensive ($32 for a canister that is supposed to carbonate 60 liters of water--I have not been able to verify that yet), and as far as bottles and syrups go, you would do well to hold out for sales on those (like Target had in April, and Kroger had earlier this month).  As I said at the beginning, the main reason I'm even trying SodaStream to begin with was that I got the machine and one bottle for free.  You may want to see if someone local to you on Facebook Marketplace or Craigslist is selling their machine cheap (plus they'll probably throw in whatever they got with it, too--bottles, syrups, and maybe even a CO2 canisters).
2. My pet peeve is this: You'd think that one advantage of SodaStream would be the ability to make flavors that aren't already available at supermarkets--Coca-Cola Freestyle soda machines (which I've seen at restaurant chains like Five Guys Burgers & Fries and Zaxby's) have this ability.  However, that has not been the case with SodaStream.  You'd think that if you're a sales executive at SodaStream, you'd want to drive sales by introducing flavors that can't be found elsewhere.  Consider: Recently, Mountain Dew came out with three limited edition flavors (Liberty Chill, Star Spangled Splash, Freedom Fusion).  But those three flavors only come with high fructose corn syrup--no zero sugar versions.  SodaStream could have theoretically filled that void by making zero sugar syrups of those flavors.  (I mention Mountain Dew precisely because PepsiCo owns that brand, and PepsiCo bought SodaStream in 2018.)  Pepsi's ownership means that SodaStream will not be making syrups for Coke, Keurig Dr Pepper, or any other Pepsi competitor anytime in the foreseeable future.  Here's another idea: How about bringing back some discontinued Pepsi sodas as SodaStream syrups--Pepsi Jazz (a diet cola that came in three flavors: Black Cherry and French Vanilla, Strawberries and Cream, and Caramel Cream), Crystal from Pepsi (the citrus cola formula they had briefly in late 1994, not to be confused with the first Crystal Pepsi), and Josta.

**Why the delay in publishing this article?  Two things happened:

• First, as I mentioned earlier, there was some trial-and-error in using the SodaStream machine, bottle and syrups.  I wanted to make sure I was giving each of the four syrups a fair assessment, and not downgrade one based on a mistake I made.
• Second, before that, I battled gosh-darn pneumonia for a month.  I was sick for 10 days with what I thought was a bad allergic reaction to some dust before I even went to the hospital.  Once I finally checked myself in, I was in the intensive care unit for 4 days.  I estimate that it took another 17 days to recover the strength I had lost from being sick for so long.  I'm just about 100% now.

A Misadventure in Do-It-Yourself Repair

Anyone can share and celebrate success.  But it takes strength to admit failure.  So, now, I'll share with you a failure I had, and how I only recently conquered it.

Self-reliance is one of my core values.  And some of you may know that this extends to trying to repair my own stuff, especially the machines that help me take care of myself.

My dishwasher was not washing the dishes in the top rack.  Furthermore, whatever dishwasher detergent I put in the dispenser, would only be partly dissolved.  It wouldn't matter whether the detergent was a powder or liquid, name brand or store brand--half of it would be stuck inside the dispenser.

Long story short, the cause was my own darn fault.  I had taken apart the dishwasher to replace the filter and clean the spray arms*, and I thought I put everything back together.  It turned out that I forgot to include one tiny, but important part: the spray nozzle.

I didn't immediately recognize its importance when I saw it three weeks ago, while doing some cleaning up in my laundry room.  Then I realized, Hey, little this plastic part is the same gray color as the upper and lower spray arms in my dishwasher.

I took another look at a YouTube video** about cleaning those spray arms in hopes that I could figure out where that part was supposed to go.  And yep, it was supposed to go smack dab in the middle of the lower arm.

Even after putting that part back in its place, I had my doubts as to what impact a tiny little part*** would have.  I said to myself, "That might be better--I'll just have to find out, won't I?"

To my amazement, the dishwasher worked the best it has in a long time.  I had been using the dishwasher without that part for over a year, which meant I had been washing glasses, mugs and anything else I would have put in the top-rack by hand for that long.

Before this month, the frustration I had with my dishwasher had gotten to the point where I seriously considered buying one of those newfangled Chinese countertop dishwashers**** on Amazon.  Two weeks ago, I deleted those dishwashers from my Amazon wish list.  That felt so good.

*At that time, the dishes in both the top and bottom racks were coming out dirty.  The root cause of that problem had nothing to do with the filter or the spray arms; it was actually a clogged kitchen drain.  Every time my dishwasher tried to drain out the dirty water at the end of a cycle, it would back up into the kitchen sink, and some of it would end up back in the dishwasher.  Once I unclogged that drain, it made a huge difference in the bottom rack, which left me with the top rack to deal with.

**That video is available here. 

*** It certainly is a critical part, and replacement parts sites price them accordingly.  RepairClinic charges $30.76 plus shipping for it.  As of April 25, someone on eBay had a used one for $18.  It's a good thing I didn't throw mine out by mistake.

****These little countertop dishwashers come from a variety of brands, just not any that I would necessarily trust for kitchen appliances.  They also require plenty of countertop space and would set me back at least a couple hundred bucks.

Learnings:

1. Don't assume that there's only one problem.  It's possible the spray arms and the filter were issues, but so was the clog in the kitchen drain.

2. No tool will work well if it's incomplete.  Even a tiny part can make all the difference.

Appendicitis Awareness Day

On this day two years ago, my appendix turned heel on me.

Only thing is, I didn't know it at the time. No one in my immediate family ever had it.

I had just lifted up a TV--a Panasonic 43" plasma set, and you may know how heavy those are--when I felt that pain. I didn't give it much thought--I probably just took an Advil or a couple Tylenol. I thought I had just strained something, and the pain would go away soon.

One night later, I felt a fever. But at that time, I figured I just needed to get plenty of rest and take plenty of fluids--that ought to work, right? The only worry I had was that maybe my luck with avoiding COVID-19 ran out; what if I got it from someone at my most recent food shopping trip?

The next night, I had sweats and chills, and the pain in my abdomen also got worse, and for those reasons, I should have gone to the hospital. I still insisted in my mind that these would ultimately go away.

It was another two days before I finally went to the hospital. At the time, I couldn't even keep down sips of water, so I thought maybe I had unknowingly given myself food poisoning from something I cooked at home. (As it turned out, not being able to keep down food or drink was caused by constipation, which was the result of all the rest I had taken.)

Based on elevated white blood cell counts and a CT scan of my abdomen, my doctors came to the diagnosis of acute appendicitis. Since the medical standard is to remove the appendix when appendicitis is present, I figured that I would have surgery in short order.

However, the doctors informed me that due to the severity of the inflammation, it would not be wise to perform surgery right away, because with all the inflamed tissue, there was the risk that the surgeons might cut away some tissue that might ultimately be good tissue.  In the meantime, I was fed intravenously, and I also received antibiotics through the IV.

Long story short, I got sent home way too early due to a spike in COVID-19 cases.  I had to go back to the hospital a few weeks later after a stabbing pain erupted in the area of the appendix, and I ended up finally getting appendectomy until March 9.

In the nearly two years that have passed, I wonder how I could so easily forget how tough things were while I was sick, weak and hospitalized:

• The time I had to walk around, just hours after my appendectomy, just to turn my bladder back on (and with the IV machine hooked up to my arm)
• The times I had to walk around, even when I was in pain, to get my digestive system going again (also while tethered to the IV machine)
• The pain from the gas the day after the surgery (especially in the shoulders) Not being able to get a good night's sleep, much less be able to sleep on my side
• Constantly waking up with sweat on the back of my head and my chest, the sweat smelled like bile
• The stabbing pain on February 28--that was my appendix at its worst, and I was sure it had burst at that point
• The inconvenience of showering while tethered to the IV machine
• The frustration of putting my hospital gown back on after showering
• The times I had to drink down that potassium--yuck!
• Having to wear slip-on shoes and suspenders for the first two weeks after my surgery because it was impossible to wear a belt or tie shoes without feeling pain in the abdomen

Why do I want to remember all this?  Because I do not want to ever again feel so sick that I have to be hospitalized.

So, if you ever feel pain above the belly button and it moves to the right lower abdomen, and the pain feels like someone hanged a plumb bob on your intestines, you probably have appendicitis and you need to get that looked at.