Sunday, March 16, 2014

They Say No Aspartame, But . . . Sodastream Caffeine-Free Diet Cola Flavored Soda Mix


The Good: Calorie free, Fairly inexpensive
The Bad: Requires a pricy machine to make into soda pop, Very bland taste, Splenda-style aftertaste
The Basics: Sodastream produces a pretty unremarkable flavor mix with their Caffeine-Free Diet Cola Flavored Soda Mix, which might not have Aspartame, but it is still not all that good.


Ever since I bought my wife her Sodastream Fizz (reviewed here!), I think my wife and I have both been drinking more soda pop. After all, with so many options and it being so (comparatively) inexpensive to make soda ourselves, it is hard not to! Given how much my wife and I both love the Sodastream Diet Pink Grapefruit soda (reviewed here!), it is sometimes hard to get us to make up some of the other flavors we have picked up. In consuming so many Sodastream products, I realized I had not yet reviewed any Cola-flavored soda pops! So, I thought I would start my reviews of what should be a baseline average soda pop flavor with the Sodastream Caffeine-Free Diet Cola Flavored Soda Mix. The Caffeine-Free Diet Cola was the cola we went for because it was calorie free.

Unfortunately, the Sodastream Caffeine-Free Diet Cola Flavored Soda Mix is an unremarkable flavor with an unpleasant aftertaste, which drags it down into the slightly below-average area of my ratings.

Basics

Available primarily in a 16.9 fl. oz. plastic bottle, Sodastream Caffeine-Free Diet Cola Flavored Soda Mix is a concentrated flavor syrup for creating Caffeine-Free Diet Cola soda. At $5 - $7 per bottle, the Sodastream Caffeine-Free Diet Cola Flavored Soda Mix makes 50 8 oz. servings, though the 16.9 oz. bottle gets me twenty-five servings as we have a 16 oz. bottle for our Sodastream Fizz.

Ease Of Preparation

The Sodastream Caffeine-Free Diet Cola Flavored Soda Mix is a flavoring to be used with a Sodastream soda pop maker. After one fills the Sodastream bottle with water – I recommend filtered water and when I use my Brita Water Filter Pitcher (reviewed here!) in order to prepare the soda – and carbonates it, they must add a capful of Sodastream Caffeine-Free Diet Cola Flavored Soda Mix to the bottle. It is that easy. Preparing the Sodastream Caffeine-Free Diet Cola Flavored Soda Mix into a soda pop is easy and the result is pretty much what one expects when they get a cola.

Taste

The Sodastream Caffeine-Free Diet Cola Flavored Soda Mix has no distinct aroma once it is made up. In the bottle, it smells sweet and strong, like a light root beer, but the moment it is put into water, the aroma seems to disappear.

In the mix and once prepared, the Sodastream Caffeine-Free Diet Cola Soda Mix is slightly sweet and mostly dry. This diet cola is overwhelmed by the flavor of it sweetener, which tastes exactly like Splenda to me. The result is a dry rendition of a pretty generic cola flavor. Cola is one of those flavors that tends to define itself; Sodastream Caffeine-Free Diet Cola Soda Mix tastes like a poorly sweetened version of cola with a sickeningly sweet and dry aftertaste that quickly overcomes the more familiar, cola flavor of the beverage.

The Sodastream Caffeine-Free Diet Cola Flavored Soda Mix leaves the mouth dry from whatever non-Aspartame sweetener the company is using.

Nutrition

The Sodastream Caffeine-Free Diet Cola Flavored Soda Mix makes a soda pop, so it is not creating the most nutritious thing in the world. Even so, Sodastream creates soda pops that do not have anywhere near the problems of most sodas. In the case of Sodastream Caffeine-Free Diet Cola Flavored Soda Mix, this is one of the healthier mixes. It results in a beverage that has zero calories and 0 mg of Sodium. Outside that, there are no nutritional benefits or detractions to this drink mix or the drink it makes.

Made primarily of water, caramel coloring, and natural and artificial flavors, the Sodastream Caffeine-Free Diet Cola Flavored Soda Mix has nothing particularly wonderful in it. There is no caffeine, no aspartame, and no calories. It is kosher and carries no allergy warnings.

Storage/Cleanup

The Sodastream Caffeine-Free Diet Cola Flavored Soda Mix is a liquid, so there is the danger of spilling it and wasting some of it. But, for the most part, it is a drink mix that keeps for quite some time (more because it is not so good that we want to keep making up bottles of it!). The bottle we got for the winter holidays had an expiration date of December 9, 2014, so this could be stocked up on!

The Caffeine-Free Diet Cola mix is a dark brown color that does not get significantly lighter when made into actual soda pop. It washes off nonporous surfaces very easily and comes out of most clothes very well. If it gets on clothes, consult a fabric guide to get the potential stain out.

Overall

Generic, dry and sweet in an obviously artificial way, Sodastream Caffeine-Free Diet Cola Flavored Soda Mix might be a diet beverage some soda pop drinkers crave, but not those who want good flavor!

For other soda pop reviews, please check out my reviews of:
Virgil’s Black Cherry Cream Soda
Maine Root Ginger Brew
Jones Cream Soda

4/10

For other drink reviews, please visit my Drink Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2014 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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