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56 JANUARY 2020
PPARENTLY, WE’RE ALL REALLY THIRSTY. Bottled
water has become a huge business—it’s been
the number-one beverage category in the
United States since 2016, and it has contin-
ued to grow every year since 2010. (We drink
more than 13 billion gallons of it every year.) Strange thing,
in a country where the tap water is relatively pristine—
some well-documented cases aside—and in a world where
single-use plastic bottles are an environmental plague.
So for this column I put a couple of filters, so to speak,
on our water test. First, we limited ourselves to sparkling
waters. (If you’re thirsty for still water, just drink filtered
tap water out of a reusable bottle; the Earth will thank
you.) The second restriction was that we only tasted natu-
rally sourced waters—those from identifiable springs or
aquifers. No “various locations throughout the U.S.,” as
one colorfully canned sparkling water brand’s website
says, more than a bit vaguely.
And as for “we,” for this tasting I convened a small
panel: Master Sommeliers Pascaline Lepeltier and Sabato
Sagaria, chef Diego Moya of Racines in New York City,
myself, Associate Restaurant Editor Oset Babur, and Caitlin
A. Miller, our stalwart wine assistant. My worry was that
the exercise of tasting all these waters would be pointless;
they’d all be, basically, water and taste more or less the
same. I couldn’t have been more wrong. First, the samples
varied wildly simply in terms of carbonation. Fizziness
levels ranged from softly tingly to appealingly pinpricky
to all-out tongue assault, and our tasters’ preferences
were equally diverse. The mineral content of the waters
also distinctly affected both taste and mouthfeel. Overall
minerality in bottled waters is measured in total dissolved
solids, which in our favorites ranged from a modest 62 mil-
ligrams per liter to a whopping 2,900 milligrams per liter
(for Vichy Catalan). In layman’s terms, what this means
is some waters we tasted were salty, some faintly bitter,
some seemingly citric (though none were flavored), some
weirdly metallic (ding—you’re out), on and on. Here are
our top picks, in alphabetical order.
A
CASTLE ROCK
Our second-favorite
water overall, Castle
Rock comes from
cave springs located
3,000 feet up on
California’s Mount
Shasta. It’s low in min-
eral content, gently
bubbly, lightly acidic
rather than alkaline,
extremely refreshing,
and deeply gluggable.
ICELANDIC GLACIAL
Sourced from the
Ölfus spring in Ice-
land, which bubbles
up through layers of
volcanic rock, this
naturally alkaline
water is fairly low in
mineral content, with
lively bubbles. It has
the lowest dissolved
mineral content over-
all of the group.
MONDARIZ
A local doctor popu-
larized the thermal
springs in this small
Galician town back
in the 1800s. It’s
modestly minerally
(as compared to Vichy
Catalan, from the
other side of Spain),
with crystalline purity.
THE MOUNTAIN
VALLEY
On the moderate side
in terms of minerality,
this easy-drinking,
“softly persistent”
water comes from a
natural spring near
Hot Springs National
Park in Arkansas.
Although it was no
judge’s top favorite, it
scored well across the
board.
SAN PELLEGRINO
San Pel’s restaurant
popularity makes
sense because it isn’t
polarizing; we found it
seamless, with som-
melier Sabato Sagaria
commenting, “Great
balance of minerality
and bubbles.” Even
Leonardo da Vinci
supposedly liked
it—legend has it he
traveled to the town of
San Pellegrino Terme
specifically to try its
waters.
SARATOGA SPRING
WATER
“Good balance on this
one,” chef Diego Moya
said regarding this
water from Saratoga
Springs, New York,
with its distinctive
cobalt-blue bottle.
Founded in 1872, the
water was once known
as “Saratoga Vichy,”
a nod to the famous
springs at Vichy,
France.
TOPO CHICO
AGUA MINERAL
This water’s once-
local-to-Texas popu-
larity has rocketed
up nationally, thanks
to its retro packaging
and glass bottles (as
well as new owner
Coca-Cola’s market-
ing bucks). Sourced
from a spring near
Monterrey, Mexico,
since 1895, it’s
unmistakably, ebul-
liently bubbly; two of
our panel members
guessed it blind.
TYˆ NANT
Sourced from a Welsh
spring, this was the
top-performing water
overall in our tasting.
The bubbles were
brisk and invigorating
and the mineral con-
tent exceptionally bal-
anced. As Oset Babur
said, “This is what I
look for when I grab a
sparkling water out of
the fridge.”
VICHY CATALAN
This Spanish water
was our most polar-
izing because of its
sodium content (1,100
milligrams per liter).
It’s unmistakably
saline, firmly miner-
ally, and you either
absolutely love it (like
sommelier Pascaline
Lepeltier) or just find
it not to your taste at
all (me, I admit).
