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.