The New Soda Craze Thing

I feel like, all of a sudden, everyone is talking about specialty sodas and making your own soda and everyone and their mom has a soda making machine in their home. Apparently I've been living in a hole,  trend-wise.

After scoping out what's been going on, I think I can get behind this whole thing. Sodas made fresh and customizable, with no high-fructose corn syrup or artificial sweeteners? I like that idea. I also like the idea of soda as a special treat, on par with the occasional scoop of ice cream or glass of wine, rather than the default drink with every meal. We have really been moving away from diet coke and whatnot, preferring black coffees and teas for the caffeine fix when necessary*.

There are also the natural sodas, like oogave (made with agave nectar, actually pretty good) and the dry variety (simple sodas, made with pure cane sugar - very DRY). 

This week, Mike and I decided to try out our local soda shop, Squeak, which not only makes their own soda in dozens of flavors, but you can customize your own as well as buy bottles. We opted for some of their unique flavors, cherry cream (me) and green tea fizz (mike). I definitely preferred mine, since I like my green tea as, well, tea, and sugar free, but his actually wasn't bad. You get to customize your color as well as take the opportunity to sniff all the different flavors before ordering (it seriously looks like a perfume counter, or a customizable bath products shop). They also have customer ratings for the different flavors, in case you're afraid to try something. Next time, I'll be ordering something less safe, like butterbeer, or lavender soda.

Is anyone else more up on this foodie trend? Who has a soda stream machine? Or some other machine? Do you love it? I would love to learn more about all this.

*I will admit, however, that my four hour Tuesday night class requires a pink rockstar for me to stay alert and participate.