Soda water

Soda water , also known as club soda is water containing carbon dioxide, which bubbles out and makes the drink so tasty and peculiar. Historically first soda waters were prepared by adding soda to lemonade[?], where a chemical reaction between soda and citric acid occurs to give carbon dioxide.

The first sucsessful carbonated water was made by Joseph Priestly[?] in 1796 who was trying to immitate the naturally occuring effervescent spring water that bubbles up from underground springs and was thought, at the time, to be extremely healthy.

Nowadays, soda water is made by passing pressurised carbon dioxide through water. This increases the solubility i.e. more CO₂ dissolves than would normally. When the pressure is reduced e.g. by opening the bottle, the gas comes out of solution, hence forming the bubbles.

Soda water is considered by some housewives to be good for removing stains. For example coffee stains from mugs, or stains from silver.

The usual method of preventing a red wine stain from setting in, is to sprinkle salt on the stain and then apply a liberal amount of soda water.