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)
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