ETCETERA / DESIGN DINOSAURS: 9 The Soda Stream
Your support helps us to tell the story
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.
The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.
Your support makes all the difference.THE APPEAL of the mix-your-own-fizzy- drink idea is very British: so long as you place no price on your taste-buds or your time, here is something that will save you money. This premise alone kept sales of the Soda Stream drinks-maker bubbling on the country house circuit for decades.
It is hard to credit, if you know the appliance, but it was originally designed for convenience. William Hucks, head distiller of the Gilbey gin company, launched his distinguished brass and glass Prince of Wales soda-water-maker in 1903, to enable butlers in remote country houses to conjure from humble tap-water as much of the sparkling mixer as their masters' spirits required. There was nothing new in the idea of a water-carbonating device. Joseph Priestley had demonstrated 131 years earlier how the natural effervescence of mineral springs could be duplicated with pressurised air. Factories like Jacob Schweppes's began to proliferate after 1793, gradually adding various mineral salts and flavours: ginger around 1820, quinine tonic in 1858, cola in 1886. What Hucks's device did was to move the carbonation process from bottling plant to butler's pantry, using canisters of compressed carbon dioxide gas.
However, as bottled drinks became cheaper and ever more readily available - and butlers ever scarcer - people needed a better reason than soda water to buy the Soda Stream. It was found in the Sixties, in the form of bubblegum-flavoured concentrates which could be added after carbonation. The company was 'repositioned' as a soft drinks business. In 1985 it was bought by Cadbury Schweppes.
Hucks's butler's contrivance never recovered its dignity. The plasticky feel and 'fizzy 'n' fun' graphics of the latest Gemini drinks-maker (price pounds 27.99, gas cylinder refills pounds 3.05, concentrates anything up to pounds 2.75) reveal the extent of the downmarket slide - to, now, little more than a child's toy. The Prince of Wales should be relaunched for adults, in heavy capuccino- machine chrome, as an indispensable adjunct to the age of designer water.
Join our commenting forum
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies
Comments