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All you need for fun flavors of soda.

I know I haven’t gotten rolling with too many tales of being on the drink with diabetes, but I’m switching gears for this post to lighten things up.  You can always use the product of this post to make some sugar free mixers and invent some fun adult beverages with them.

I’ve been thinking about making my own soda for about a year now.  Last night, I finally pulled the trigger.

SodaStream  has been on my radar, but I’ve avoided buying the kit because the premade mixes they have available use sugar substitutes that I’m not fond of.  As a side rant, I’m not fond of any of them other than Stevia these days.  I believe SodaStream’s mixes have either Splenda or some flavor of aspartame.  I am suspicious of both.

I put the idea of making my own mix in the back of my mind with the processing priority set to low.  Some time later I looked into it again.  All the SodaStream does is carbonate water.  I asked myself, if that’s the case couldn’t I flavor the water with whatever I want?  Yes.  My first thought was to use flavor extracts that are typically used for baking.  There are all kinds of fun and typical soda flavor options like root beer and cream soda, but I couldn’t find those at the local grocery store.  After the successful trial last night I did order some online from, Faeries Finest.

For last night’s trial I bought good old, non-sweetened Kool-Aid, rather a knock off thereof.  Kool-Aid is the original water flavoring with all kinds of great flavor options.  Being a diabetic, our family never got to take advantage of the cheap little packets where all you had to do was add that and a ton of sugar to water to hydrate your kids on a hot summer day.  It was actually a little hard to find the packets that weren’t pre-sweetened yesterday in my grocery store.  They were buried at the bottom of the aisle.  I hope those mixes aren’t going extinct.  Each packet is about $0.19 each so I stocked up with my and my wife’s favorite flavor; grape.

Without further adieu, here’s the recipe.

1 unsweetened packet of your favorite Kool-Aid flavor.

1 Liter of water

1 Teaspoon of liquid Stevia Extract

A couple notes on those ingredients.

The kool-aid mix calls for 2 quarts of water per packet.  A liter is roughly the same amount as a quart and I used only one to have more intense flavor.

There are a lot of Stevia-based sweeteners out there now, but don’t be fooled.  Most of them are mixed with some other sugar or sugar substitute like splenda or another form of sucralose.  Don’t get any of them.  Get pure stevia.  One teaspoon of stevia extract equals 1 cup of table sugar, which is also the amount the Kool-Aid calls for.  I overdid this one too, and it worked out fine.  There are  some times that stevia aftertaste lingers in things I make with it, but this soda was all grape but still sweet.

The outcome was delicious.  If you’re a diabetic who drinks gallons of soda like me, but are concerned about large quantities of aspartame putting holes in your brain, give this a shot.  You won’t be disappointed.