Retro Tech: Sodastream – Get Busy With The Fizzy

Sodastream

Who would have thought that home carbonation could make you the most popular kid on the street?

Certainly not Guy Hugh Gilbey, who created an ‘apparatus for aerating liquids’ a full 70 years before we were encouraged to ‘get busy with the fizzy’.

All you had to do was fill a bottle with tap water, pop it in your SodaStream, force the carbon dioxide into the water through the touch of a button and you had your fizz.

Add a sickly syrup and life suddenly seemed a bit better. Until you tasted it.

Although nostalgia for the device is strong, some remember that it was the mere process of the pop-making that was so wonderful.

One regular criticism was that the drinks weren’t as good as the store-bought variety they mimicked.

SodaStream is still around (about £65 from lakeland.co.uk) and today there are a number of healthier-sounding fruit flavours and sugar-free varieties.

I bet they still taste as bad now as they did in the 70′s when Sodastream was huge in the UK.

Posted on October 3, 2009 | Filed Under Tech