I love drinks with bubbles in them……well, except champagne. I had champagne once – at a wedding. Everyone drank it at the same time for the toast and immediately when it was in my mouth I knew I was going to gag – it was TERRIBLE. But, since I was in a crowd I knew it was most likely unacceptable for me to spit it out – so I didn’t. But I’m sure I was making the most terrible face of all time. I hope it was not captured on photo for all of eternity. *Shudder*
You’ve already read about my capers with Water Kefir so we’re obviously not going to be drinking that. But sometimes I’d like to have something other than Teecino and water. This week we made Ginger Ale, which made my wheels start to turn. If I can flavor club soda with ginger, why can’t I flavor it with all sorts of things? I can!
Enter liquid stevia! I noticed that Sweet Leaf came in all sorts of liquid flavors. Why would someone want a flavored sweetener? For making their own drinks of course! I used to love, love, love orange soda – so I thought I would try to make my own orange soda with Valencia Orange Stevia. You’re going to pay around $8-10 for a 2 ounce bottle of liquid Sweet Leaf, but that little bottle goes a looooooong way.
Club soda will run you less than $1 per liter. I paid $.78 for the last that I bought. Not too shabby. Making all this stuff with club soda makes me wish I had a carbonated water machine – maybe one day in the distant future. I usually make one cup of my Stevia Soda at a time; that allows me to not have to worry about losing the fizz. And I hate flat pop. Blech!
You will want about 8 drops of stevia per 1 cup of club soda. That was just right for us. Mix it up, put it down the hatch and enjoy all the wonderful bubbles. Woohoo!!!! Was it the same as orange soda from the store? Nope, but I might like it better. It’s not so heavy and the flavor is light and refreshing (I sound like a commercial). I’m definitely going to be buying more flavors!
Flavor options from Sweet Leaf:
The chocolate flavors are awesome in coffee! The possibilities are really endless with this idea. You could add fresh lemon juice to your club soda and then some lemon stevia or just plain stevia. I could sit here and come up with combos all day – but then you might go into a coma. What combos have you tried or do you want to try?
When you combine the thrifty price of the club soda with the very small amount of stevia you use, the price of this drink is very comparable to regular soda – BUT you know what’s in it.
*Note: This post was NOT sponsored by Sweet Leaf. I just wanted to post about my new awesome idea…..which I’m sure someone has already done, but try not to burst my bubble. 😉
Stevia Soda
- 8 ounces of club soda
- 8 drops of flavored liquid stevia
- Combine and enjoy!
- Drink it! 🙂
*This post is linked at Think Pink Sunday on Flamingo Toes, at Healthy 2Day Wednesday on Day2Day Joys, at Fat Tuesday on Real Food Forager, at Hearth and Soul Blog Hop at Penniless Parenting, at Simple Lives Thursday on GNOWFGLINS, and at Made at Home Monday on The Purposed Heart.
What flavors would you use to make Dr. Pepper?
Ha ha! I think the recipe for Dr. Pepper might be a secret. 🙂
Hi Stacy,
AGAIN! 🙂 Here is my code.. actually the DO have a program like Vitacost *still my favorite by far* But.. this is good just to get the discount and get some Sweet Leaf!
Thanks,
Teri
Girl, you are crackin’ me up! 🙂
oops, yes they do! hang on and I’ll post my referral code! 🙂
Hi y’all!
Stacy, you saved my life the other night! lol… Thank you! I was just thinking, I googled “sweet leaf” and found it at iherbs.com they have a promo coupon, first time orders, 10 bucks off if you spend over 40 and 5 bucks less than 40 AND free shipping if you spend 20 bucks. Sorta kinda like vitacost but not as good. But anyway… if you want to stock up, go there.. I am 🙂 I tried Stevia before, the Now Brand and some other brand and they were awful 🙁 But this is worth a try so I’m going for it! If I purchase 2 bottles that’s 20 bucks, 5 off = 15, PLUS free shipping that’s what I’m talking about!! coupon code… as far as I’ve read, they don’t have a program like vitacost but they do have $ off!
Best iHerb Code For October 2012: QEX010
HA!! 🙂 You’re funny! I’ve ordered from iherb a few times and I like them. They have certain things that are hard to find elsewhere. I think I have a post about it somewhere on here…..
Your stevia soda sounds delicious, as well as a much healthier choice. Thank you for sharing this post with the Hearth and Soul hop. PS – Don’t give up on champagne – they are all different, and proper French champagne is gorgeous. You might prefer a ‘demi-sec’ (or medium dry) one. Not that I’m trying to encouraging you to drink alcohol 🙂
I think you might be right – I’m quite sure it was cheap champagne that I was given. 😉
Great post, BUT, you want to be using seltzer water or sparkling water instead of club soda.
Read the label on club soda, it has the same bone robbing phosphate as any other soda.
A dash of lemon or lime juice or a couple slices of cucumber or muddled herbs or fruited vinegar shrub are all very good flavorings for seltzer.
🙂 Good point – however we don’t drink it very often and I’m a believer in the 80/20 principle…..we do prefer seltzer, but the club soda was on the clearance rack. HA!
Wonderful Post!! I drink the Zevia sodas but only on special occasions because they are soooo expensive!! I am wondering if the same idea would work with agave and essential oils. My favorite soda flavor is vanilla and I have that essential oil. I also have orange, lemon, lime, tangerine….yum. I’ll have to see how it goes and then post my results.
I hope it goes great!
This one deserves a big WOO HOO! I can’t wait to try this out on my husband who is a soda holic.
It takes a bit to get used to…but if you’ve been missing soda, it’s a big treat. 🙂
HI Stacey, sounds good. Regarding soda machines: I have priced them, and aside from the original cost (which is really irrelevant in the grand sum of things) the soda bulbs work out at $1.00 per litre, whereas soda water from Aldi’s is about 0.78c per litre – Aldi’s it is for me.
I add all sorts of flavoured cordials to it – you can get cola flavoured cordial (my favourite) plus lots of other flavours – well worth it cause everyone gets what they really like.
Sally
I have a friend who really loves and uses her’s a lot….but I’m not sure it’s a good investment for us. 🙂 Wish we had an Aldi!
I haven’t tried that brand yet, I’ll definitely order it, it’s $15 at Kroger. We use stevia all the time, however, some stevia’s have a bad after taste, how is that brand? Great idea Stacy!
Sweet Leaf is the only one we like. I’ve tried NOW brand, and it’s terrible. BLECH!
I love this and have been doing this for years now! Everyone I tell thinks it’s weird but once I got used to the taste I was hooked. I like soda for the bubbles too. This is a much cheaper and healthy trick!
Great minds think alike! 🙂
I bet Sweet Leaf would sponsor it! I have NuNaturals vanilla and cocoa stevia here, so I’ll have to give that a try!
What do you put the vanilla and cocoa in? Coffee?
Stacy, I put mine in coffee and in whipped cream. I want to experiment with them in baked goods, but have been too chicken so far:)And I can’t believe I haven’t tried this soda yet! I’m definitely going to grab some club soda when I go to the store today. Thanks for linking up to Healthy 2Day Wednesday!
Oooooh. Never thought about whipped cream!
I love Stevia!
It’s a pretty awesome thing!
Love this! I often mix sparkling water with juice. It cuts the sugar and adds in fun…not to mention you use less juice. I will have to try the stevia though…sounds like a lot of fun to make and drink. I never would have thought of that! My kids would love all these cool flavors!
I don’t normally buy juice or keep it around the house. We’re not juice people…..but that’s an idea I’ll have to pass along!
What an awesome idea. I sometimes mix club soda and juice for my soda fix, but this sounds even better. A note about the soda machine. I’m not sure they are worth it. I actually purchased one and after reading the instruction manual, I’m not sure it is worth the hassle. I can get club soda for about $0.50 for a liter, so it would take a lot of soda to recoup that cost. I ending up returning mine, without ever taking it out of the box.
My friend Becca LOVES her’s…but she has a large family, so that probably makes a difference. I’m not sure one would be worth it to us either….we don’t drink much soda.