Seltzer!
  • Free yourself from the international beverage cartel

Coke, Pepsi and the rest of the international beverage cartel may be feeling pretty good about themselves right now, after pouring $17 million into I-1107's successful campaign to repeal a temporary two cent per can tax on soda pop. But you don't need to swallow their sweet, fizzy product as easily as voters swallowed their lies.

Last year I invested about $240 in the contraption above, finally freeing myself from the international beverage cartel, and while that may seem like a pricey extravagance, given my two to three liter a day habit, it paid for itself in months. About a thousand liters of sparkling water later, and a little more than a year to the date, I finally had to swap my 20 pound CO2 tank at my local welding supply store, at the cost of $18 including tax.

Excuse me while I enjoy a cold, fizzy drink of genuine two-cents-plain:

Ahhhhhhh! (burp) Refreshing.

And I'm not just saving money, I'm helping to save the environment, what with less fossil fuel being burned to lug carbonated tap water to the store and back to my house, and hundreds a year of fewer plastic bottles needed to support my habit. And while my daughter and I mostly drink plain seltzer, we've also had loads of fun experimenting with carbonated juices, and a variety of homemade and commercial syrups. (Hint: even a run of the mill dry white wine makes a better "champagne" than many of the cheaper brands.)

So if you too are into fizzy beverages, but you're not into lining the pockets of the multinational corporations who just fucked with our tax code, I suggest you do what I did, and fuck 'em back. It'll be delicious, in more ways the one.