Since visiting Italy this summer, our family got hooked on sparkling water. Specifically we liked “less gas” than the sparkling soda water you tend to get here.

Purchasing sparkling water involves a lot of glass and waste. For a while I’ve been looking for something I can make at home that’s not Soda Stream (yes I am aware of them, but their products are aesthetically ugly). Further, I am just interested in “water” not “flavored water” - for that I cut a lime.

That’s when I discovered Aarke - it’s a really nice looking device made of metal. It uses the Soda Stream 60L / 410g cartridges so you can buy those anywhere. It comes in three finishes, polished steel, matte black and brass. I purchased the matte black. One cartridge produces about 60L of carbonated water or 80 bottles of say Pellegrino.

The Aarke comes in a few colors, and two generations I have the gen1 and they just released the gen2. I can’t tell you what the differences are but I’d go for the gen2.

We are super happy with the Aarke! It looks great in our kitchen, and you can dial in the amount of gas by using 1, 2 or 3 pumps of the handle.

The bottle is plastic - and I did research into why. There are safety issues carbonating glass that would require a substantially larger unit to contain the whole glass bottle - basically it would be giant. Since the bottle is not heated and is made of food grade plastic, it’s sufficient for this purpose.

If you decide to buy one, going direct from the manufacturer web site might be better since their Amazon inventory looks to be low.

Buy Now - Amazon

Buy Now - Aarke