Water Picks

I will be the first to admit that I am very picky about the water I drink. A lot has changed since I was a kid - getting it out of the fridge dispenser or straight out of tap seemed to be the only options afforded to me as a child. My only exposure, that I can remember, of bottled water was distilled water by the gallon and that was for use with the iron or my sister's contact lenses.

Nowadays, there seems to be 1001 bottled water choices out there, in all sorts of price ranges. And I have, very handily, fallen into the marketing trap. I am a bottled water drinker and I am very particular about the kind of bottled water that goes into my body.

I have to say my all time favorite bottled water is VOSS. If money was not a factor, I would drink VOSS water all day. It comes in a very simple, cylindrical bottle with a gray cap. This water is EXPENSIVE. It's about $2/0.5 Liter. I also found that if you are able to buy a bottle of VOSS, you can drink the water, save the bottle and you have a pretty chic vase. I don't get VOSS very often, due to the high price, but when I do, it's magic. A very nice bartender, at a nightclub in London, supplied me with unlimited bottles of VOSS while I got my groove on! That was major...majorly awesome!

Back to reality....in my everyday life, I tend to lean towards Fuji, which runs a close second to VOSS and is my water of choice when at the market or convenient stores, and Smartwater, which is making a flying leap right behind Fuji. I find that between Fuji and Smartwater, I have a pretty good shot at finding one of these wherever I'm at. I remember when I was back at West Lafayette for something and I went to go get a bottle of Fuji water to tie me over for the day and some college kid remarked, 'Ooooh - swanky water.' I don't view Fuji water as swanky. Sure it comes in a cool rectangular bottle and it just looks "clean" but it's just good water. And now that Smartwater has Jennifer Aniston and Tom Brady pushing their product, I'm hoping it will become more mainstream because it used to be that I could only get this water at Whole Foods.

If either of those two options are not available to me, I would sigh...and then I would move on to my second tier of water choices. This is headed up by Poland Spring, which is available through one of the vending machines on my floor. I've got nothing against Poland Spring - it's good and refreshing (as water should be)....and I really could go on and on with all the bottled waters I would drink - but it's probably just easier to name the ones I try to avoid - Dasani and Aquafina.

I think I first had Aquafina in 1999 and it didn't taste right. I even bought a couple of bottles to taste and compare and I could tell there was a difference between Aquafina and regular tap water - there was something there that left me with a slightly bad aftertaste. I have to say the same for Dasani - there's just something about that water that I don't like. Could it be that both are owned, bottled and marketed by the two largest soft drink distributors of the world (Coke and Pepsi - for those of you not in the know)? I don't think so - cause I like Coke and Pepsi products....but I can taste a difference and I know there are others out there that can too.

I can't totally diss Dasani though because there was this one incident where Dasani was like my best friend. It was during an LPGA Golf Tournament and it was hot as all heck. Luckily, we were VIP (got cool VIP passes and gifts) so we were allowed to traipse around the course and they had special, air-conditioned, nicely stocked tents set up all over the course just for VIPs. Well - because it was so hot and we were doing so much walking, we needed to keep hydrated. It was a Pepsi-sponsored event so my only options were Pepsi cola products or Dasani water. There's only so much soda one can drink in a day - so I had to break down and drink in the Dasani. Amazingly, when it is THAT hot and you're desperate for some liquid, you don't taste the difference in the water.....I must've downed a keg of Dasani water that day and that was the one day that Dasani and I were friends. I haven't had a sip of Dasani water since...and I'm going to try and keep it that way....but we'll always have the memories.

Honorable mention: Evian was actually knocked out of the 'everyday' top spot by Fuji and Smartwater. There was a time (ages 24-29) where I drank a lot of Evian but I think once I started getting more Fuji water in me, Evian was quick to drop - and now when I drink Evian, I taste the difference - I taste something that is not appealing to me that is the same as what I taste in Dasani and Aquafina. So sadly, I haven't drank Evian in a pretty long time.

So I guess that's just one more item to add to my list of 'Things I'm picking about...'