Not yet found enough things in life to get snooty over? Try water! Try different waters from around the world! Obsess over details like mineral content and TDS!
Guests can read a thorough description on each bottle, including a detailed account of the taste, the mineral content, and the “TDS”— total dissolved solids — which, Riese says, affects the taste of the water. A low TDS means a smooth, clean drink and high TDS ensures a bitter, salty and often metallic taste.
Evidently this is already a big deal in Germany, where the general manager of the restaurant in the article above hails from.
Riese hails from Germany, along the Danish border, and says that in his home country, learning about water is an art form (there are 580 brands of mineral water in Germany alone). He has long been passionate about water and received his Water Education certification from the German Mineral Water Association.
Granted, there are dozens, if not hundreds of brands of bottled water available here in America, but none of them approach the $20 a bottle of a premium Berg from Canada. Most of them don’t even come in glass bottles.
The whole idea reminds me of a scene from the movie “Return to Me” when David Duchovney’s character Bob meets Minnie Driver’s character Grace while Bob is on a blind date with a woman designed to be one of the most abrasive women around:
Marsha: [as Grace is bringing water to their table] Oh no-no-no-no-no! Do you have *bottled* water?
Grace Briggs: Sure. Anybody else?
Marsha: I don’t want Swiss water. I got sick on an imported Swiss water.
[to her friend]
Marsha: Do you remember that night? As long as it’s not Swiss or tap water it will be fine, preferably French, no bubbles. I want it cold, no ice, no glass, just the bottle and a straw. Do you want to write it down? I don’t want Swiss water, I got sick on an imported Swiss water once…
Grace Briggs: I’m pretty sure I got it.
Marsha: [later, as Grace is telling her the specials] That sounds so *fattening*. Is every dish here cooked in *oil*?
Grace Briggs: No… some we boil in Swiss water.
What isn’t described here is how Grace goes to the kitchen, gets a bottle of French water, dumps out the contents and fills it from the tap. Marsha just adores her “French” water from Brooklyn.
So yeah, mark me down as one of those who won’t be asking to see the Water Menu any time soon. I’m still pretty bitter about not getting to see any Artesians back in the 80’s.
You’ll find the Artesians some day, bro.
It’s kinda odd to think that I was eleven when that commercial came out. Of all the things I could have remembered from when I was eleven, why is it a beer commercial that sticks out?
Well, I know one reason why it sticks out for me. That actor played Matthew Cuthbert in Anne of Green Gables. I watched that show over and over again as a kid.