Bonnie: I don’t know when the love affair began.

For as long as I can recall, I’ve been passionate about sparkling water, AKA seltzer or club soda.

(An aside about club soda before I continue: It usually contains “salt” from the sodium additive—often sodium bicarbonate. Those watching their salt intake should choose other sparkling waters more often.)

When eating out, I’ll order Perrier before or San Pellegrino with a meal as the latter’s bubbles are smaller making it a better accompaniment to food. Seriously. I learned that at one of the water tastings held for food editors.

At home I drink sparkling water by the gallons, literally. I’d lug home quarts and ½-liter bottles of whichever of my favorite brands were on sale. As with other carbonated beverages, the fizz would often be gone before the liquid in the bottle was. There’s nothing worse than expecting fizz and getting flat as you begin to quench your thirst.

My sons were raised on spritzers, my blend of juice and carbonated water. No soda, pop or whatever you call it in your part of the country in our home, other than for parties as others always requested it.

I tried those siphons with cartridges, the ones that make just one quart. I found this process too expensive for the amount of seltzer we drank.

Back to lugging the bottles. Bags and bags of bottles. Heavy bottles.

And then I learned about Soda Club. Their countertop gadget works on the same principle as the siphons and cartridges I just mentioned, but instead of needing a cartridge for each bottle, Soda Club’s makes about 110 bottles, depending on how much or how little carbonation you add to your water. This gadget is also meant to make flavored soda as the company produces syrups too, but that’s of no interest to me.

I love my seltzer maker. It proudly sits on my counter awaiting the next bottle of chilled water to be made as fizzy as I like it. And that chilled water is always in my fridge, in Soda Club’s quart containers, ready and waiting to be fizzed. That’s any water. Tap water, filtered water, mineral or any other bottled water. The choice is yours.

Now when company asks for sparkling water, I ask, “How fizzy?”

Bryan: I will go ahead and toss myself in the lot of club-soda lovers here. Being raised by a dietitian has different angles. No cake (except on your birthday) is a drawback; being raised without the ubiquitous American addiction to soda is a giant leap forward. I ALWAYS have a bottle (generally the quart size that keeps carbonation better than larger bottles) of seltzer in my fridge. My favorite mixes for it are with heavy pulp OJ or just a dash of (real) cranberry and lemon juice. Artificial soda is one of the worst things you can put in your body (period). Parents—stop giving your children sugar water! Do them a favor and mix up some natural ‘spritzers’. The countertop seltzer maker is an amazing product that allows easy access to sparkling water anytime…

Eric: Mother, don’t deceive your adoring readers, I think my first introduction to weight lifting during my teenage years was lugging the 20-pound bags of on-sale soda water brands from the car to the house; so don’t over exaggerate about the “heavy” bottles. How you must miss honking the horn when you drive into the garage (my signal to come help) followed by hearing the pitter-patter of feet running down the stairs to carry the bags back up to the kitchen. However, I must give credit where it is due; you started me on my love affair with sparkling water. The soda maker is one of my favorite appliances to ever grace the kitchen counter in my mother’s house, and to this day I still love the ability to play with the amount of carbonation I can add to the water. If you’re a soda water fan, then I can tell you nothing makes better than this machine. Its simplicity, ease and size just add to its value.

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