Carbonated Water/Seltzer Poll and Thread

[jellydonut]

When I die, bury my Sodastream with me.

Carbonated water and coffee are the only bright spots in my day.

[Jeff22]

Gerolsteiner. But only if it's very cold

[HCM]

I'm sitting here drinking the last of my stash of Italian San Pellegrino and thinkin' about whether or not I really do like seltzer water.

I like it some, because I have a tendency to drink a lot of water in a single gulp and bubbles make me slow down a bit. It also has helped me virtually eliminate soda from my diet, by giving me a bubbly drink, but one that has 0 calories and sugar. If I pretend hard, I can pretend it's the beer I can't drink right now. Finally, CO2 is the debil to some people and anything that uses it and makes me belch more, particularly in front of my disapproving colleagues, gives me a small amount of schadenfreude.

So - carbonated water - yay or nay?

Also, there is a distinction, tonic water has quinine and often corn syrup in it - and therefore is a beverage akin to soda and thus excluded from this conversation.

Only one good use for seltzer water-

A "favorite" torture device used by the federal police in Mexico is to use a bottle of mineral water and mix with chile powder (preferably chile piquin). Mix. Shake well. Gag victim's mouth. Introduce at victim's nostrils.
I am not sure if the Mexican police invented it, but it works for them.

It's called "tehuacanazo", because a common mineral water brand name is "tehuacan".

[trailrunner]

My wife and I love carbonated water. She used to drink a lot of diet soda, and I drank a moderate amount, but we transitioned to carbonated water. We had a Soda Stream machine for a while but eventually gave it up and just buy it from the store.

[JAD]

Gerolsteiner when I can get it in glass, San Pel in glass when I can’t. I drink it at cellar temperature or cold. I do like topo Chico in the little single serve bottles. I often buy two liters of club soda and mix it with apple juice (Apfelschorle) or cherry juice.

[Rosco Benson]

I like the "seltzer waters" with lemon or lime flavoring. No sugar, no calories. I've found that the store brands at Kroger and Meijer are just as good as the national brands.


Plain sparkling water or seltzer is fine too. Club soda often has salt added. I'm not real concerned about sodium intake, but why have it if it's not doing anything to enhance the flavor/mouth feel?


Rosco

[Nephrology]

We were given a SodaStream by the GF's mom a few months ago. It's great. We don't use any of the flavorings. I like to add a little bit of lemonade or a squirt of lemon juice.

I really want to make our own home-made version so I can buy commercial CO2 tanks instead of the tiny branded ones that SodaStream makes you use. It would be much cheaper. That will be a project for when the world stops being on fire.

[whomever]

"I really want to make our own home-made version so I can buy commercial CO2 tanks instead of the tiny branded ones that SodaStream makes you use. It would be much cheaper."

Not all that cheap up front, but close to free afterwards: In the early 1980's, before microbrews really caught on, I home brewed beer. Washing bottles and titering in sugar to bottle carbonate is a PITA, so I bought a setup of 3 'soda kegs' (the 3 or 5 gallon containers that Coke syrup is distributed in), a regulator, tap, and a scuba sized tank of CO2 from the welding store. After brewing, you just put the beer in the keg and used the CO2 to carbonate; waaay easier.

When microbrews happened, I started buying bottled beer again, because I like the variety; drinking 5 gallons of the same kind gets tedious. And a few years later, we developed a taste for the 2L bottles of fizzy water. After doing that for a while, the light dawned - I just fill up the kegs with tap water and carbonate it. Once you have the setup, it's essentially free. CO2 in the tank is a liquid, not a gas, so they last forever. My tank just ran dry a couple of months ago, after maybe 25 years of regular use, and I refilled it for $25 or so. At $1 a year for all-you-can-drink, it compares favorably to a 2L bottle at $1.29 :-)

Your local homebrew store will have the complete setup. Dunno current prices, mine was maybe $300 back in the day.

(it takes a couple of days to carbonate a freshly filled container, so for a continuous supply you need two kegs)

[Baldanders]

According to our local White Claw expert, @Baldanders, it's not half bad.

For me if I want to drink something cheap, a Miller Lite it is. I do love me some Miller Lite...A garage, a toolbox, an American V8, and an ice cold Miller Lite is heaven on Earth. Like a hot cup of coffee on a cold morning in a deer stand or a piece of pecan pie after Thanksgiving dinner...

White Claw tastes OK, but it opens the eye of Cthulu on you....maybe he will eat you first when he shows up?

I stick to vodka and soda now. Never drank it until a few months ago. Sobieski and my beloved Food Lion Mandarin orange flavor seltzer.

I definitely prefer fizzy water to flat. Good with a bit of juice. Pelligrino is great, but pricy. I usually just stick to the Food Lion 12 packs, orange flavor. Sometimes I get the liter bottles of Polar brand.

But dear god man, "lite" beer causes reduced IQ. Which is why I'm drinking Natty Daddy 8% fine malt liquor. More calories, more alcohol, pretty much tastes like 'Merican beer. Really cheap. Very little detectable fusel alcohol. 😂

[revchuck38]

I like the "seltzer waters" with lemon or lime flavoring. No sugar, no calories. I've found that the store brands at Kroger and Meijer are just as good as the national brands.

This. Though I do like me some Diet Coke, the flavored-with-no-sugar seltzers are what I reach for when I want something refreshing, almost always in the lime version. I like regular Coke too, as long as it's diluted with bourbon.

I got used to Perrier in the 70s when I was called on to work as an interpreter at NATO military events in the FRG that included the French and/or Belgians. Booze flowed freely at those events; Perrier let me have a drink in my hand and stay sober. I remember Gerolsteiner was about 35¢/liter in the commissary.