An old fashioned beverage that is making a comeback is something called a “shrub”. A shrub is essentially a fruit and water drink with vinegar added.  Farmhands apparently were very fond of this drink, as it was considered extremely refreshing on a hot summer day.  While drinking a vinegar beverage may sound odd, the fruit and sugar mellow out the acidity of the vinegar and it’s really quite wonderful.   While traditionally made with non-carbonated water, modernizing it with the fizzy (carbonated) water you can get from a SodaStream Soda Maker takes it from good to great. 

Shrubs are also quite the rage in metropolitan areas, where cocktails are seeing a major renaissance.  I make shrubs at home with my SodaStream all through the summer, using a range of fruit syrups that we make in our farm kitchen, and sell at the farmers’ markets or online.  The range of flavors is unlimited.  Any berry muddled up with the herb, or spice of your choice, can make the base for your carbonated shrub.  Here is a recipe for a recent shrub from our farm kitchen.  If you are interested in more recipes, or ways to use fruit syrups, visit our blog at www.farmtojar.com.

Now, enjoy!

Plum-Cinnamon-Orange Sparkling Shrub:

• 1 c. cider vinegar
• 1 c. juiced plums (boil them gently to get juice and then strain)
• 1 c. sugar
• 1 tsp orange zest
• 3 drops cinnamon oil (can substitute ground 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon if you don’t have oil)
• 6-8 oz. sparkling water made fresh from your SodaStream

Directions: 

1. Combine vinegar, plum juice, sugar, zest and cinnamon in medium saucepan and bring slowly to a boil.  Reduce heat to low after mix comes to a boil and simmer 3 to 4 minutes
2. Transfer mixture to a glass jar or bowl, cover and let sit at room temperature for about 24 hours (less is fine if you’re in a hurry, but the longer it sits the more the flavors meld).  Strain if you want the purest syrup, but it is not necessary if you don’t mind a little pulp.
3. To serve, stir 3-4 Tbsp shrub with 8 oz. sparkling water from your SodaStream. Pour into a tall glass filled with ice, and serve immediately.  (Bottled and refrigerated, shrub will keep up to a month).

Ms. Fizz and friends have been spreading our fizzy magic all of Earth Week 2012. We’ve seen green products, green households, green thumbs, and green initiatives out the wazoo! We are proud to be a part of global efforts to better this planet, as we eliminate waste 1 bubbly bottle at a time. SodaStream’s vision is to create a world free from bottles. At SodaStream, we believe it is time to rethink how you make your soda and to understand the positive environmental impact when making soda at home. We are committed to continuously improving as an earth friendly brand and offering eco-friendly products that have a positive impact on our environment. Since January 2009, we have saved the world from over 1 billion plastic bottles.

Think green, act green, BE GREEN.

And now you know: You can use your SodaStream remnants to whip up a bubbly batch of Easter eggs! (No worries – the Easter grass won’t stick to them.) For best results, immerse your egg for about 20 minutes and rest on an egg carton to dry. Check out some of our creations below!

From left to right: Diet Pink Grapefruit, Orange, Fountain Mist, and brand sparkling new Crystal
Light Wild Strawberry Energy (coming to stores in May!)

]]> http://msfizz.sodastreamusa.com/2012/04/05/bubbly-batch-of-eggs/feed/ 0 http://msfizz.sodastreamusa.com/2012/03/29/can%e2%80%99t-get-to-a-spa-this-weekend-make-this-drink-instead/ http://msfizz.sodastreamusa.com/2012/03/29/can%e2%80%99t-get-to-a-spa-this-weekend-make-this-drink-instead/#comments Thu, 29 Mar 2012 15:35:26 +0000 Ms. Fizz http://msfizz.sodastreamusa.com/?p=1717

By Maria Lichty, Guest Blogger, Two Peas and Their Pod

My husband, Josh, and I are the creators of the popular food blog, Two Peas and Their Pod. We share a love of cooking, baking, and entertaining. We created this recipe specially for SodaStream fans, using our brand new SodaStream! This drink is perfect for the upcoming (or already-arrived!) warm weather. Enjoy!

Cucumber Lemon Lime Drink

• 16 ounces of Diet Lemon Lime Soda
• 1/2 large cucumber, peeled and diced
• 16 ounces filtered water

1. Make the Diet Lemon Lime Soda, using your Sodastream.
2. In a blender, add 16 ounces of cold filtered water with diced cucumber. Blend until completely liquid. Strain water and cucumber through a small sieve, extracting as much of the cucumber pulp as possible.
3. Add the Diet Lemon Lime Soda. Stir with a straw or spoon and enjoy!

Visit our blog for recipes…

By Maria Lichty, Guest Blogger, Two Peas and Their Pod

My husband, Josh, and I are the creators of the popular food blog, Two Peas and Their Pod. We share a love of cooking, baking, and entertaining. We created this recipe specially for SodaStream fans, using our brand new SodaStream! This drink is perfect for the upcoming (or already-arrived!) warm weather. Enjoy!

Cucumber Lemon Lime Drink

• 16 ounces of Diet Lemon Lime Soda
• 1/2 large cucumber, peeled and diced
• 16 ounces filtered water

1. Make the Diet Lemon Lime Soda, using your Sodastream.
2. In a blender, add 16 ounces of cold filtered water with diced cucumber. Blend until completely liquid. Strain water and cucumber through a small sieve, extracting as much of the cucumber pulp as possible.
3. Add the Diet Lemon Lime Soda. Stir with a straw or spoon and enjoy!

Visit our blog for recipes that are simple, fresh, and family friendly. Our kitchen is always open!

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Right now there are over 7 billion people on our planet, and another 2 billion are expected to join by 2050. That is a lot of mouths to feed! Not surprisingly one of the most effective ways to save our water is to save our food.  Roughly 30% of the food produced worldwide is wasted every year – that’s 1.3 billion tons. That’s a lot of water wasted!

So today, in honor of World Water Day, try and spend a few minutes thinking about how you can stop wasting food and water. Here are a few of our tips:

1. Use leftovers creatively, visit a site like Love Food Hate Waste for creative ideas on how to use your leftover bits and pieces to make delicious meals
2. Swap one food item a day for something which requires less water to produce. For example a glass of juice takes 170 liters to make, how about swapping it for a simple glass of water or fizzy SodaStream seltzer.
3. Always think about what you are putting on your plate. Are you really going to eat all that? You can always go back for more! Limit what you take to what you are going to eat and you will eliminate a lot of waste.

Our exhibit booth brings all of the fizz and fun in a spacious exhibit of 350 m². It’s been quite literally buzzing with activity since Saturday, when we opened with Health and Fitness Guru Jillian Michaels and SodaStream CEO Daniel Birnbaum! In addition to rubbing elbows with more than 2,000 exhibitors, we had some BIG news (almost as big as our exhibit’s life-size SodaStream machine…).

The Launch of the Revolution SodaStream Soda Maker

The new Revolution Soda Maker by SodaStream is a new, innovative soda maker with breakthroughs in both function and design. It’s our first electrically powered soda maker and includes fun, fancy, and fizztastic features, such as a “touch button” to activate your choice of carbonation levels (low, medium, high, and turbo); a “snap-n-lock” mechanism for easy bottle insertion and removal (no screwing in the bottle anymore!); and an LED display indicating carbonation progress and CO2 usage!

CEO of SodaStream, Daniel Birnbaum, says that “The Revolution takes home soda making to the next level, and consumers will love the new features and the improved user experience. With these patent-pending, technological advances our users will be empowered to make their own soda faster and more efficiently than ever before.  The bottle simply clicks into place and carbonates at the single push of a button, offering a consistent level of fizz each time.”

Check out the beautiful new Revolution for yourself in our new video.

When you think of the words “orange soda,” what do you think of? Is it Kenan and Kel? Your childhood? Something else entirely? More than likely you weren’t thinking about online marketing. But in the small town of American Fork, Utah, there is an online marketing company with the name OrangeSoda, a name that has fostered many questions that SodaStream has helped us answer in a fun way.

To clarify, OrangeSoda does not actually produce or sell soda. OrangeSoda helps small- to medium-sized businesses advertise online. If you’d like to see our work in action, just Google “orange soda” and you’ll find that OrangeSoda ranks higher than all of the other popular brands of soda who actually sell orange soda. Just sayin’.

So while having a name like OrangeSoda is a lot of fun, it also creates a lot of questions. Some of the most frequently asked questions include: “So, do you guys make orange soda?” or “Where is the soda factory?” For many years, our answers to these questions have been “no” and “nowhere” – until now. With the invention of the SodaStream, we can officially say we make orange soda (even though we don’t sell it and our factory is located on whatever desktop we place the SodaStream).

The SodaStream has been a valuable addition to the OrangeSoda team. As a matter of fact, it has even won an honorary employee of the month. We use SodaStream as a gift for clients and a fun way to entertain guests. In fact, over the holidays, we sent 16 SodaStreams to partners, and they were ecstatic to actually receive soda from us for once. Even for those who aren’t trying to justify some reference to soda in their business title. The SodaStream is just plain cool.

1. Best Soda in a Supporting Role: Family Friendly Celebratory Cider

By Betsey Thompson

• Sparkling Seltzer Water (1 liter – prepared SodaStream Carbonated Water).
• Ginger Syrup (1 cup sugar, 2 cups water, 1 cup sliced ginger – brought to a boil, then cooled, strained).
• 1 cup Apple Cider.
• 1 cup fresh-squeezed lime juice.

From Betsey: Combine Ginger syrup, apple cider and lime juice with seltzer water in large pitcher. Serve over ice and garnish with a cinnamon stick and a lime twist.

2. Best Soda in a Leading Role: Party Punch

By Caroline Hertzog

• 2 (1 liter) Sodastream Ginger Ale
• 1 (1 liter) Sodastream Cranberry-Raspberry
• 1 (46 oz) Pineapple Juice
• 1 (1/2 gallon) Orange Sherbet

From Caroline: Mix the sodas and pineapple juice in a punch bowl. Place in the fridge to chill for at least one hour. When ready to serve, scoop the orange sherbet in and let sit for 10 minutes. After that, stir gently and serve! It’s so yummy!

3. Best Overall Recipe: Dr. Pete’s Pulled Pork

By Rebecca Lord

• 1 liter of Dr Pete
• 1 5-6 pound boston butt roast
• 1 can of chipotle peppers (I only use a small can of them and add according to heat factor desired)
• 1 whole onion, chopped

From Rebecca: Put seasoned roast in a crock pot, add onions, add peppers and cover with Dr Pete….cook on high for about 6-8 hours and meat will come out so tender, you can serve it as a pulled pork sandwich, using the juice as sauce. If you use the whole can of peppers, be prepared for some major heat….=)

The event included more than 1,500 guests including celebrities, elite activists, actors and musicians, industry executives, political and business leaders and leading environmentalists from around the world come to hear the latest green messages from some of Hollywood’s biggest stars, all while sipping on the fizzy, tasty, and eco-friendly soda by SodaStream!

What better way to kick off an award show weekend then with a little contest?

We’re giving out our own awards here at SodaStream! Submit your best recipes using your SodaStream and we’ll choose three winners to receive some free, delicious flavor mixes! You’ll receive the flavor that you used in your recipe, as well as an additional flavor of your choice. And just like the paparazzi, we’ll be featuring the best recipes on the Ms. Fizz blog (US Weekly has nothing on us…)!

Submit your recipe in the comments for:

• Best Soda in a Leading Role (Must use a SodaStream flavor as the focus of the recipe)
• Best Soda in a Supporting Role (Uses plain sparkling water as part of the recipe)
• Best Soda (Best recipe overall)

Recipes must be submitted by conclusion of the award show on Sunday at 12 AM EST. Winners will be announced next week. Good luck fizzing!