You probably don’t need an entire review to help you decide whether or not you want a soda-making machine, but if you’re at all interested in making your own carbonated beverages then the Penguin Home Soda Maker is a good bet.
Overview and Features
The Home Soda Maker starter kit runs $219.99 and includes the machine itself, two glass carafes, and two big bottles of CO2 which should provide you with about 120 bottles of carbonated water. There’s also the “Plus Package” which costs $269.99 and includes one extra bottle of CO2.
You can use the machine to simply make fizzy water, but the real fun starts when you mix in various flavors. These “SodaMix” bottles cost $5 each and make 12 liters. Aside from soda flavors, you can buy mixes to make flavored water and tonic as well.
I just noticed that there’s even an Energy Drink mix that costs $6.99, so I’ll need to budget its recurring purchase from now until the day I die.
Pros
If you drink a fair amount of soda, carbonated water, tonic, and the like, then the Home Soda Maker is a god-send. It’ll save you from running to the store constantly and you’ll be creating far less waste, if that’s important to you. Plus, the non-diet soda flavors are made without high fructose corn syrup and the diet flavors are made with Splenda instead of aspartame. So if you don’t want to quit drinking soda cold turkey, this machine provides a relatively reasonable alternative.
You’ll also end up saving money in the long run. After the $229 equipment price, carbonated water will cost you 20 cents per liter and soda will cost you under 60 cents per liter, according to the company.
Cons
The $229 price tag may be off-putting to some. After all, it’s basically a machine that taps into a bottle of CO2 and transfers some of that CO2 to a bottle filled with water. And even though the machine only takes 30 seconds to fizz up the water, the whole process of buying mixes and CO2, along with the cost of doing so and the fact that it’s not going to taste exactly like your favorite brand-name beverage may keep people from getting involved. However, it might be that you like the homemade stuff better.
The CO2 bottles, too, seem kind of cumbersome to get refilled. You can either buy two new bottles for $50 or send your two empty bottles back and get two new ones for $25. You don’t actually send the empties back, though. Here’s how it works:
“Ordering a full Exchange Carbonator requires that you currently have an empty Carbonator to return to Soda-Club. Please have your existing empty carbonator ready for pick-up at the time of delivery of your full exchange carbonator. Most deliveries will be made between the hours of 6AM – 6PM. Please leave your empty carbonator outside by your front door beginning on the morning of the weekday following your order. For example, if you place your order on a Tuesday, leave your empty carbonator outside your front door as of Wednesday morning. Do NOT place in a shipping box. If you place your order on a Friday, leave your empty Carbonator outside your front door as of the following Monday morning. However, please be aware that it may take 5 – 7 business days to receive your order.”
Luckily there are retail distributors in most states, so you could handle the exchanges in person while you’re running errands. I’m not sure how long two empty bottles would last on my sidewalk in the middle of Boston.
Conclusion
Like I said earlier, you probably already know whether or not you want something like this. If the idea of making your own soft drinks and carbonated water is appealing to you, then the Penguin Home Soda Maker is great. It looks cool, it’s really easy to use, and the end product tastes good. And if your household already consumes a lot of carbonated beverages, you’ll end up saving time, money, and you won’t be constantly throwing away empty bottles and cans.
Penguin Home Soda Maker [SodaClub]
Like this video? View more here…
“You’ll also end up saving money in the long run.”
Ignoring the depreciation on the machine and the chance of messing up, $1.60/ 2 liters of soda isn’t as cheap as Coca-Cola.
Top of google shopping, but fairly consistent… http://www.shopmerwins.com/04963901.html
Well seeing you could make whatever flavors you wanted with real sugar instead of corn syrup. Funny thing, I can buy carbonated water for a buck and some Torano syrup and just make sodas that way with no machine.
I really WANT to want it, but… seems like a lot of work for what, at least to me, would be little more than a novelty.
Similar stuff has been out there for about 2 decades now. I had this in India.
Is this concept of drink making new to the US? It’s been around in Germany for maybe 10 years now with a quite good infrastructure to refill (in fact it’s an give your empty ones and get new ones instead business) the CO2 cartridges. But after an unbelievable hype it seems to me that most of the people banned their machines from their kitchen already. The taste wasn’t really good and normal beverages aren’t that expensive.
Best review yet, Doug!
Code Monkey LOVE Diet Mountain Dew!: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v4Wy7gRGgeA
lol
I didn’t know I could get one so cheap. :) The 50 bottles of empty 2-liters of mountain dew take a while to clean up each month. This might save lots of cleaning time, too. Thanks TechCrunch.
hah this was funny and interesting but I think I’ll pass :)
Doesn’t anyone remember those seltzer bottles from old-fashioned bars? Neither do I, but they are everywhere in noir films and three stooges, the big glass bottle and the carbonating top, I presume. Awesome and so 70 years ago.
You can get all the equipment to do this from a homebrewing store for less money.
* CO2 tank + valve, regulator and hose: about $150
* Carbonation cap that fits on any 2l bottle: $20
that’s it. Well, you need the empty bottles.
The best part is that refills for the CO2 tank are about $15-20 (for quite a lot more CO2 than these guys give you).
This is the cap:
http://www.weekendbrewer.com/carbonatorcap.htm
(I have never used that store, it’s just the first google result)
of course it wouldn’t have those fancy bottles or look like a penguin.
Well it does look cool, but I think I don’t make enough money to be that cool.
A bit fetishistic, I think.
That line at the end was priceless… flying to close to the sun on wings of wax…. LoL
Genius Pure genius…
I would love to try that thing out, but when he say 200 and change for that sucka… I said “I’ll just buy me a few years supply of actual, already made soda for that price”…. LoL
Why do you have to poke the penguin’s eyes out to access the bottle?
really awesome video.
what i’m not getting is why this doesn’t cost $40.
Video F’n ruled! However, this is for those people that just have to have everything. No keeping up with the Joneses this time. Better off just ordering my favorite pre-made soda online and having a college student deliver a truckload of it, then off-load it into the garage, for an extra $10.
Count that as a “no” for me. Besides, who wants a penguin sitting on their counter top? Palin may try to shoot it.
There is the fact that you are not transporting liquids across state lines in a fossil fueled truck, thereby reducing your carbon footprint just for you to have soda — and thus for hippies this is a good option.
I looked into this not too long ago, but deemed the penguin too expensive, however they do have the larger 1 Liter size at half the price….
why should I buy the Penguin with all the work and ordering stress, while I can buy brand water / sodas as well as cheap sodas for lower costs when i am in the supermarket to buy food anyway?
Sure, if you plan to use it on a 3-year plan…
WHAT IN THE HECK ARE YOU DOING. Reading instructions. If it got out that you some men read instructions you know what that would do in my household.
Oh yeah… any energy drink mixes like “Rock and Roll Star” or something?
I have had a device like this (including the Penguin currently) for the last 4 years. If you are primarily a seltzer drinker, it is truly a godsend. A liter of seltzer with quality water you can trust at a price that rapidly approaches $0.20 cannot be passed up.
If you drink soda, I’m not sure it’s worth it. I’ve been told that the flavors do not match over-the-counter soft drinks, and the price goes up quite a bit. But I don’t drink soda, so that’s ultimately for someone else to judge.
The carbonation tank pick-up was totally painless for me. They come to your door. It’s less demanding than getting a Poland Spring drop-off.
Overall, this has been a wonderful time and money saver for me. Soda Club rocks.
High fructose corn syrup may have a complicated-sounding name, but it’s actually a simple sweetener, made from corn, that is nutritionally the same as sugar.
High fructose corn syrup is not sweeter than sugar; and high fructose corn syrup, sugar and honey all contain the same number of calories (four calories per gram).
Like table sugar and honey, high fructose corn syrup contains no artificial or synthetic ingredients or color additives.
The American Medical Association in June 2008 helped put to rest misunderstandings about this sweetener and obesity, stating that “high fructose corn syrup does not appear to contribute to obesity more than other caloric sweeteners.”
Consumers can see the latest research and learn more about high fructose corn syrup at http://www.HFCSfacts.com and http://www.SweetSurprise.com.
Audrae Erickson
President
Corn Refiners Association
bullshit
Total 100% BS! High fructose Corn Crap is in everything nowadays and diabetes/cancer is exploding.. Yeah, that’s a coincidence..
Kane sugar is much healthier than corn crap!
Not the same. high fructose corn syrup, if not used as energy turns to fat twice as fast as cane sugar does, which is not great.
The two links Audrae supplies don’t link to the AMA report. I wondered why that was…I found this…hardly a clean bill of health:
“At this time, there is insufficient evidence to restrict the use of high fructose corn syrup or label products that contain it with a warning,” AMA board member William Dolan, MD, says in an AMA news release.
That’s not a green light to guzzle foods or drinks containing high fructose corn syrup. … The AMA says it isn’t thrilled with the level of research on high fructose corn syrup, partly because there isn’t a lot of research on the health effects of high fructose corn syrup and also because of industry funding for much of that work.”
Bah-Lonee!
You expect me to believe your crap-ola about how “safe” HFCS is? This is almost as funny as a tobacco company exec trying to sell us on how “cool” we’d all look with a cancer stick hanging on our lower lip…
HFCS is much more refined than either sugar or honey, therefore it raises the body’s blood sugar levels much faster than either of the other two; putting much more pressure on the pancrease and increasing a person’s chances of becoming insulin intollerant. The AMA is still pushing a low fat diet for heart disease, so I’m not sure I’d use them as a creditable reference.
How is this even new, when I was a kid in england we had Soda Streams, great fun for a kid. We mixed all kinds of gross flavors together and guzzle with glee. That was before the dreaded corn syrup scare.
I DON’T CARE how much is costs. If I can make soda without the cancer/diabetes creating High Fructose Cory Syrup I am getting one asap!
For less than $100 you can purchase a Sodastream Fountain Jet home soda maker from the same company (Soda-Club) that sells the Sodastream Penguin.
They both make sparkling water and sodapop in seconds. The main difference is that the Penguin uses glass carbonating carafes whereas the Jet uses PET carbonating bottles (BPA-free).
With both models you eliminate the lugging, storage and disposal associated with store-bought soda and sparkling water.
Over 10 million Sodastream and Soda-Club home soda makers have been sold across Europe over the past 15 years.
I have had one for years and am upgrading to the Penguin. This pop has a 2/3 fewer calories, way less sodium and fewer preservatives without even mentioning the sugar/corn syrup issue. I can’t give up soda and the store bought stuff makes you fat and feel like poop. I LOVE mine. Keep drinking that store bought crap or spend a little money on the front end and you won’t be sorry. Don’t forget that this uses less waste and you don’t have to lug liquids home. I use the filtered water from my fridge.
I just got a Penguin and I love it. I don’t care about the $. Very cool and tastes great.
I love this thing
I think the biggest problem with this machine, for me is, I don’t have a water cooler. (I have reverse osmosis water filtration in the house) So I have tap temp. water and have to add ice to further water down the soda. (just guessing it’d be watered down, I don’t have one of these so i wouldn’t know) this is ON TOP of everything else said in the comments above. like I said I have water filtration in the house but I STILL buy bottled water for the convenience of being able to go to the fridge and grab a cold water. Even if with this machine you get rid of the plastic bottles used with normal cola, I guarantee you its going into a plastic cup, so when does it end?
Seriously, your complaints are pretty null and void. For starters you just invest in some containers and pour your (reverse osmosis filtered) water into them. Place as many said containers into the refrigerator and… Presto! An endless supply of refrigerated drinking water. (No more felling silly about buying bottled water!)
“… going into a plastic cup …”???? Really? Seriously? I’ll bet most people that buy this machine will use glass and even if they don’t, that’s where it ends.
Every once in awhile i come across something that baffles me and feel the need to reply.
Cheers.
Its a great machine. Got same one. You used it incorrectly however. Supposed to give it short bursts of air until you hear a whistle. Then do 1-5 whistles at same short rate of pushing lever. I like 4 whistles. I have gone as far as to try 8 which is far too much carbonation. Its a great device. But the flavors leave something to be desired. I like the cran raspberry flavor and the energy beverage flavor really does take like red bull. But the rest have too heavy a sucrolose taste (they mix half sugar cane half sucrolose for a semi healthy approach to soda). If you want good soda mix buy it instead from an italin soda syrup maker like Monin or Torani. You can find the on the internet. I buy mine from Everything Coffee and tea http://www.everythingcoffee-tea.com – they had best shipping rates…other selling syrups had similar prices but shipping was crazy. I have yet to find a good coke flavor..though I hear you can buy coke syrup online I have not tried yet since the vendor I ordered from did not have it. The canisters seem to last a very long time too. It took my wife, son and I 4 weeks of use to expell one canister (plus friends and relatives)…each canister costs 14.95 at williams and sonoma. We got the machine cause my wife drinks perrier like there is no tomorrow…and the idea of making our own seemed cool. No more buying or carrying it. We keep two cold bottles in the fridge ready to go at all times.. filled with tap water…when we are ready we drop it in machine and less than a minute later have great seltzer…honestly as good if not better than store bought. Also you can use it to re-fizz the soda water. BUT DONT do it to anything that has been mixed with a syrup…as I found out the hard way…it starts flowing everywhere (it warns not to do this….but being a “man” I had to try!). Also keep in mind with this there is no need to deal with recycling soda bottles any more! I could not stand keeping cans and bottles around to bring to store to recycle. Also for those who think 200 is a lot (and it indeed is) they make a 90 dollar version as well that is not stainless steel and does not use glass carafes – it uses plastic ones. I bought one for my mother and she likes it as well.
Also the 90 dollar version Co2 bottles hold twice as much. So even more cost effective. I use Dr. pepper syrup i get from mexico (cane sugar instead of HFCS) and it tastes amazing. Best Purchase I’ve made this year.
where in MEX do you get the dp syrup?
I got a brand new Penguin starter kit from someone via freecycle.org Oakland, CA list! For free it’s way worth it. Even if it had been used…
It is a must product, you have to get one of these and try, you will never buy a plastic bottle of soda yourself. Instead make it at home in style, It is a great product! http://www.makeyoursoda.com
Thanks for the great tip. mine just arrived this morning from http://makeyoursoda.com and we love it
Quick question: how do you guys wash the maker after use? is it dishwasher-safe?
The price of CO2 is about 20-25 bucks for a 60 liter cartridge, so it runs at about 40-50c per liter, including the filtered tap water. Very well priced, considering that you don’t have to haul over the bottles, and you have it when you want it.
Also got one from http://makeyoursoda.com and saved $10 using a discount code from there.
For me its more about the convenience. I always dreamed of soda on tap
I just fell in love with my home-made Creme Soda!!
WOW WOW WOW
also got mine using the discount code at http://makeyoursoda.com
mine got delivered this morning from makeyoursoda.com i should have bought this ages ago
hey guys thanks for this website in the comments on where to buy it and get $10 off. Its informative, i’m still thinking about which soda maker to get, the penguin looks great.
Hey, makeyoursoda guys, QUIT ASTROTURFING.
great product
I’m thinking about one of these for Christmas this year. Debating the glass vs plastic. Concerned that the non-diet flavors sill have sucralose in them??? true? If so where are you finding coca cola syrup from Mexico? I wish there was a way to taste the mix before I commit…. Maybe I’ll order the syrups and pour them into some Perier to try it? anyone done this?? My husband likes Coke or Pepsi, I’m a Diet Rite chica. Thoughts??