About us and what we do
The fore-runner to AquaSpumante was set up in the Spring of 2020, just before one of the first of the interminable COVID lock-downs, when we noticed how nice it was to just relax and have a fizzy drink of our choice outside in the sun. Despite our love of the fizzy stuff we also wanted to do our bit to protect the environment by reducing the amount of single use plastic, glass, steel and aluminium often being sent to land-fill.
We bought a late model Ruby Red Hostmaster soda syphon and some carbon dioxide capsules only to find it rapidly broke down, leaking water and gas everywhere! Apparently this is pretty common; the youngest syphon is now verging on 40 years old and every rubber seal inside gradually degrades with age.
When looking for a repair service we rapidly found that one did not exist! It really was just luck when you found a good-looking Vintage, Art-Deco or Retro soda syphon or seltzer bottle which actually still worked; the majority were just being used as pretty ornaments or curiosities behind a bar or on a shelf.
This seemed a great shame and, since we quickly found out there were over 8 million Sparklets brand syphons produced in the period between 1920 and 1982, we went about seeing how difficult it would be to repair some of these and bring these design and style icons back into use. No longer would these be just colourful bar ornaments anymore.
Reconditioning the later models from the 1970s proved to be relatively easy, although it did require the development of some special tools and the re-manufacture of some of the degraded components found.
We then moved on to reconditioning and renovating syphons from the post-war period. As we went further back in time it proved more and more difficult to recondition them, requiring the development of ever more specialist tools, parts and techniques which would allow these now very old syphons to be successfully revived.
After a considerable amount of effort in developing the techniques and having replacement and alternative parts re-made we are now able to repair and renovate Sparklets and Aerators syphons from the period of around 1910 to 1982. We are also now looking at repairing and renovating selected user re-chargeable syphons from other manufacturers, such as some from the former USSR, Eastern Europe and Japan.
By renovating and repairing syphons we hope to be able to both save these modern, vintage and antique design classics from being thrown out, or just becoming curios, and make them usable once more. In the spirit of both trying to recycle, and also save the additional carbon dioxide produced during making new products, we believe that these products can do a small part to reduce our customers carbon emissions whilst looking aesthetically beautiful too.
Obviously, these syphons use a single-use consumable – the steel carbon dioxide capsule – to charge the contents with carbon dioxide gas and produce the characteristic “fizz”. The capsules are small, and relatively heavy for their size, and so are very recyclable as there is a high demand for steel (they are exactly the same size as laughing gas canisters). We also found out you can make them into artworks too!