this post was submitted on 25 Mar 2025
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Does anyone know of a place that sells their own beverage syrups to flavour carbonated water?

Not looking for brand names, so knock off cola and or root beer is totally fine.

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 5 hours ago (3 children)

A&W in Canada is Canadian (They split from the American company in the 70s) so A&W Root beer is safe although I don't know about any kind of syrup.

No idea about an alternative to cola although I've found some videos of a guy making home made syrups/soda

Coke: https://youtu.be/KWaNiwcQK2M

1886 coke (for fun): https://youtu.be/IWYuPE8rkeE

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 hour ago

Glen and Friends is Canadian, too, so if you can't kick YouTube, at least support Canadian content!

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 hours ago

Small disclaimer: their restaurants are, their store products are done by Coke

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 hours ago

A&W in Canada is Canadian (They split from the American company in the 70s) so A&W Root beer is safe although I don’t know about any kind of syrup.

You certainly pointed me in the right direction! As I was looking for A&W syrup, I came across "Fizzy-pop", and their house brand syrup is made in Canada from the look of it.

Even their Cola syrup label says "Made in Canada", so I think I found a source!! Thanks!!

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 hours ago (1 children)

Isn't it just flavored simple syrup? Just make it. Boil X liters water, Dump X liters of sugar, add some lavender, or cinnamon, or whatever is in root beer and let it boil a minute.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 hours ago

You should meet my wife. LOL

No, it's impossible for me to home cook a receipe that tastes enough like cola, root beer, ginger ale, and whatever else she's in the mood for. I'm looking for a Canadian alternative to something so easily available as it is.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 13 hours ago

Maple syrup I’m kidding, but tbh it could be good

[–] [email protected] 22 points 23 hours ago* (last edited 23 hours ago) (2 children)

Just ditch Sodastream if you can. They're an Israeli company that fires Palestinian workers over their religious beliefs and have production facilities on illegal settlements:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SodaStream#Controversies

[–] [email protected] 9 points 11 hours ago (2 children)

I'm not ditching a perfectly good device, but I might get an alternative gas source

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

Where i live, one of the local fire extinguisher companies refills them for cheaper than the "official" refills.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 hours ago

Oh nice! I'll have to look into that! But I think I'm going to go with an adapter and a 10kg canister

[–] [email protected] 4 points 8 hours ago* (last edited 8 hours ago) (1 children)

Sorry for the wall of text but I have this condition where any time a hobby of mine is mentioned, I info dump everything I've learned.

This is just my personal opinion, but I think the best option for gas is to find a way to use a standard tank with CGA320 thread. The reason being that just about any fire extinguisher refill shop will refill it for super cheap. I have a 5Lb tank that costs $20 to refill and lasts over a year. The main downside is that CGA320 tanks go for around $50-100, but if you get 2.5lb instead it can be a little lower. Going the paintball canister route can be a lot cheaper if you want to avoid the soda stream thread tax (even if you find an off brand compatible canister, I've found the refills are still a lot more than paintball or standard CGA320). Another benefit of going with a paintball canister is that you can use an adapter without a pressure regulator which also saves money.

For larger CGA320 tanks, you can either get an adapter with a built in pressure regulator that converts to the soda stream threads or ditch the soda stream for a carbonation cap (carb cap) and a separate pressure regulator. I find the pressure regulator + carb cap method to be better because then I can carbonate 2L at a time (the carb cap fits on any soda bottle), and I have a feeling that the OPV behavior of the normal soda stream vents out an unnecessary amount of CO2, whereas a normal regulator only uses OPV as a failsafe and won't vent unless you turn up the pressure too high. Either way you'll save a ton of money compared to the soda specific gas refills.

For paintball canisters, you just have to make sure the can you get isn't too big to fit and you get a simple brass adapter (which just has a simple blowoff relief instead of a full pressure regulator) to convert to soda stream threads (that's what I did before ditching the whole soda stream), but where I live there aren't many paintball CO2 refill shops and I haven't had any luck finding a fire extinguisher shop that would do paintball canisters. Brewing shops also sometimes do CGA320 canister refills if you have any of those near you.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

No worries, I very familair with the condition. Which tells me you're worth listening to!

I'm dealing with one of those quick connect things. But a converter thingy is like 10 euros, I'll get one.

Do I have to be concerned about the food safety of fire extinguisher co2?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 hours ago

The consensus seems to be that industrial CO2 including beverage and welding CO2 (which is very sensitive to contaminants) all comes from the same place as fire extinguisher CO2, so the risk seems pretty minimal. I'm guessing it doesn't make financial sense to have a separate lower purity CO2 supply chain. I believe the main contaminants are water and atmospheric air which shouldn't matter much.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 23 hours ago (1 children)

For sure. Get one used (super inexpensive on kijiji) and buy third party co2. No issues there, and no reason to give them money.

[–] [email protected] -4 points 18 hours ago (1 children)

Can also, if you're careful about it and weigh things out correctly, open the CO~2~ cannisters and put dry ice in. There's loads of videos on how to do this "safely"... I.E. - not turning it into a bomb, or giving yourself frostbite

[–] [email protected] 12 points 13 hours ago (2 children)

Just go to a welding gas store or resto supply store and get 'beer gas'. CO2 is CO2.

You can buy an adapter to connect the big cylinder directly to the sodastream. I have been using mine this way for 3 years. I pay about 40 bucks for a tank of CO2 that lasts ~5 months.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 hours ago

This is what I did for years. It's a great system!

[–] [email protected] 2 points 12 hours ago (2 children)

Be interesting to see what the price difference is. I mean, surely buying a bulk cylinder is cheaper....

[–] [email protected] 5 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

I used to be a HEAVY pepsi drinker but as I got older thew sugar didn't agree with me so I replaced it with sparkling water. I was going through a sodastream cylinder every 3 to 4 days. Whereas this bad boy costs me 40 bucks, and I have a 40 dollar deposit that I'll probably never get back because I will always have a cylinder.

The savings are huge.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 hours ago

I mostly drink still water and black coffee. I'm not drinking right now, so whenever I get the hankering for a beer I have a sparkling water, that's very rarely. My wife and I buy 2 or 3 different flavours and brands, a flat each. And between us those 60ish cans last well over 3 month.

I'm not sure what a sodastream cylinder costs. But at $40 for a tank for beer gas, I'm positive that the savings are insanely steep!

[–] [email protected] 2 points 12 hours ago (1 children)

The co2 in those bulk cylinders would be very inexpensive vs. what you get in the smaller bottles. But there's usually a deposit of $100+ for the cylinder. It only makes sense if you're going through a LOT of co2, and we really aren't. Maybe a small bottle every 2-3 months.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 12 hours ago (1 children)

Then it might make more sense to grab a small bit of dry ice every time you're needing to top up your bottles.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 12 hours ago (1 children)

Nah, it's just super easy for me to head over to my local Home Hardware, drop off a cylinder (or two, or three), and pay the $12 or whatever it is now to exchange them.

The last time I got CO2 was last summer. Four in total, and we still haven't finished the first one. We really don't drink enough to justify any extra effort, but will need to replace that syrup soon! LOL

[–] [email protected] 2 points 12 hours ago

Fair dues! I barely drink soda at all, water or black coffee for the most part.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 23 hours ago (1 children)

I use Crystal Lite packets. But I have a DrinkMate which you can put your flavours in before carbonating.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 23 hours ago (1 children)

It's for my wife, who likes soft drink flavours. But I'm personally fine with all kinds of flavours, natural or otherwise 😂

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 hours ago

I don't know any that are Canadian, but I use 0 sugar flavoured root beer packets to make homemeade "rootbeer".

Works well enough.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 day ago (1 children)

have you tried just fruit juice, like apple and blackberry makes a nice drink with carbonated water?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 23 hours ago

Yeah, I'm a fan. My wife, however, likes traditional soda flavours. 🤫

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Monsieur Cocktail syrups are really good. I’m a big fan of their raspberry and ginger ones.

https://www.monsieur-cocktail.com/en/collections/sirops-et-tonics-a-cocktails-naturels-quebec

[–] [email protected] 3 points 23 hours ago

Interesting selection of flavours! Thank you for sharing 👍

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Tacking on to this, what options are there for SodaStream-like systems that avoid US companies?

I’ve only come across a couple of European ones but they’re prohibitively expensive.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 23 hours ago* (last edited 21 hours ago)

Buy the sodastream used, since the co2 bottles are more compatible that with other brands.

For co2, you can get the Canadian replacements: https://www.indigosoda.ca/en/

But some DIY brewery shops will also offer co2 refills (or you can do it yourself with a larger initial investment).

There's no reason to actually give the sodastream company money 😁

[–] [email protected] 5 points 23 hours ago

Get and adapter/conversion kit and attach a generic CO2 canister.