I love fizzy drinks madly. Sometimes it’s the difference between a good mood and a bad mood. It’s hard to be cranky when you have a bubbly beverage in hand! My kids have inherited this love of all waters sparkling. We are major fans of our SodaStream Play Machine.

We had an older, well-loved SodaStream machine that got multiple uses daily over the course of nearly seven years that I had no plans to replace until I saw the cool new Play Machine with the ability to customize skins for it through their SkinIt program. This sleek new look for my sparkling water maker was a major draw.

One of our best-loved features of the SodaStream Play is the fact that we have ultimate control over just how sparkly we make our sparkling water. We tend to be a hyper-carbonating family because we like the bubbles to tickle, but I have a friend who likes it just barely carbonated. When she comes over, we make gently sparkling water.

We drink a ton of sparkling water just plain because we love it that way, but there are times we want to dress it up a bit for one reason or another. Often, we drop a handful of frozen blueberries, strawberries, cherries, or peach slices into a pint jar and pour the sparkling water over the top. This gives our sparkling water a hint of fruity taste, keeps it cold without diluting it, and gives us a snack for when we’re done! This is an especially nice way to get hydration and some healthy calories into the kids when they’ve had a sore throat or other illness.

Sometimes, though, you just want a sweet and sparkling drink. It’s really easy to make your own soda, and make it healthy! Our all-time favourite is what my kids actually call “Healthy Soda”. They fill a glass with ice, pour in unsweetened fruit juice (apple, grape, cranberry, etc…) about a third of the way up, and top off the glass with sparkling water from our Play Machine. A quick stir with a chopstick or butter knife and they’re as happy as clams!

We’ve been known to play with our own homemade syrups in our sparkling water from time to time, too, and have featured several of our favourite soda water mixers right here on Foodie with Family. Here is our Mega Vanilla Syrup with which we make a rocking Homemade Cream Soda, but please be sure to scroll past the recipe to see some of our other best mixers!

Mega Vanilla Syrup and Homemade Cream Soda

The most versatile syrup we have on hand is our Mega Vanilla Syrup. This is another one that is magnificent drizzled over ice cream, stirred into coffee, or mixed into baked goods like crisps and cobblers, but it is also the base for a seriously delicious, vanilla packed Cream Soda.

Mega Vanilla Syrup and Homemade Cream Soda

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Rebecca Lindamood

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Ingredients

  

For the Mega Vanilla Syrup:

• 2 vanilla beans split in half lengthwise
• 1 cup raw sugar
• 1 cup water

For the Homemade Cream Soda:

• ice
• 2 to 4 tablespoons Mega Vanilla Syrup
• fresh cold sparkling water from your SodaStream

Instructions

 

To Make the Mega Vanilla Syrup:

• Combine all the ingredients in a heavy-bottomed saucepan. Place the pan over medium-high heat and stir until sugar is completely dissolved. Bring to a boil, turn off the heat, add a lid, and let cool to room temperature completely. When the syrup is cool, pour into a clean jar with the vanilla beans and fix a lid tightly in place. Store in the refrigerator for up to a month.

To Make Homemade Cream Soda:

• Fill a glass with ice and pour 2 tablespoons of the Mega Vanilla Syrup over it. Pour in sparkling water, stir gently with a chopstick or butter knife and sip to taste it. If you'd like it sweeter, add more Mega Vanilla Syrup a little at a time, stirring after each addition, until it reaches the sweetness you prefer.

Nutritional information is an estimate and provided to you as a courtesy. You should calculate the nutritional information with the actual ingredients used in your recipe using your preferred nutrition calculator.

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Make Your Own Soda

Ginger Stomach Soother: This warming, soothing, delightful ginger syrup takes the edge off of stomach discomfort, to be sure, but just plain tastes wonderful, too! It’s tremendously simple to put together and requires just three ingredients: water, fresh ginger root, and sugar. We drink this as a homemade ginger ale, of course, but it’s pretty amazing in place of ginger beer in a Moscow Mule!

Homemade Calorie-Free Hibiscus Lime Syrup: That’s right; homemade syrups can be calorie-free, too! This zingy, zippy, citrusy number is sweetened and kept calorie free courtesy of stevia. You can feel good giving this to your kids, unlike diet sodas on the market, because of the total lack of sugar and mega hit of Vitamin C from the hibiscus and lime!

Homemade Root Beer Syrup: This one is in our refrigerator at almost all times. Made from botanicals, herbs, roots, and barks, this is a legitimate ‘root’ beer. It has an old-fashioned taste and doesn’t mimic the commercial stuff exactly, but there’s no doubt what you’re drinking. This is good stuff!

Blueberry Syrup: Oh sure, we put this deep purple, flavour packed syrup on pancakes, waffles, and all sorts of stuff, but our favourite use of Blueberry Syrup is definitely the “make your own soda” angle. Ice, blueberry syrup, and sparkling water. It’s as simple as that and you have a glass of amazing blueberry soda. I don’t know about where you live, but that would be a strictly mail order indulgence in my neck of the woods.

Boiled Cider {Apple Molasses}: Speaking of indulgences, you have to try this one on for size. Boiled Cider is exactly what it sounds like; cider is boiled down to 1/7th its original volume. In that state, it’s shelf-stable and wonderful for baking, ice cream topping, and all sorts of other things, but the way we like it best is stirred into an icy glass of sparkling water for Apple Cider Soda. If that isn’t autumnal, nothing is!

 Celery Soda: This one may sound adventurous, but if you’ve spent any time at all in a real-deal delicatessen, you know exactly what I’m talking about right now. The light, herbal beverage is the ultimate in refreshment to accompany heavy dishes or classic melted-cheese laden deli sandwiches like reubens, patty melts, club sandwiches, and pastrami on ryes.

Disclosure: This post was sponsored by SodaStream but all recipes and opinions remain, as always, my own. Foodie with Family appreciates the sponsored partnerships that keep us going!