Living: On the Waterfront

Perrier and rivals make waves

The host calls for attention and, with a flourish, produces the bottle. His guests murmur approval as he opens it and pours. They slowly swirl their glasses, inhale the delicate bouquet and then sip. “A bit flat for my taste,” sighs one. “Nonsense,” retorts another. “It’s delightful, light and refreshing.” Says the host: “An amusing little water, if I do say so.”

Not an unlikely scene, given America’s appreciative thirst for bottled mineral water. After dusty decades on the back shelves of gourmet shops, the liquid is gurgling forth as the drink of the hour, dampening demands for the vodka-and-tonic and the glass of white wine. In 1976, $7.5 million worth of bottled mineral water was bought; this year’s sales may rise as high as $250 million. Says Dwight Chattaway, a Chicago bottled-water distributor: “Mineral water is a Zeitgeist.”

Not all bottled water is mineral. More than 700 brands of bottled water are sold in the U.S., but less than half of the waters can correctly be labeled “mineral,” meaning that they once gushed directly from springs or had minerals added later. The other containers hold only ordinary water that has been purified by filtration or by chemicals. Mineral water runs in two varieties, still and effervescent. The bubbles are often achieved by the addition of carbon dioxide.

By far the most popular brand in the U.S. is Perrier, a French import that comes in an elegant tear-shaped green bottle. Says Patrick Terrail, owner of Ma Maison in Los Angeles: “Perrier has become a cocktail in its own right.” For the thirsty cosmopolitan there are also Contrexéville and Evian waters, the two bestsellers in France, West Germany’s preferred Apollinaris and Gerolsteiner Sprudel, and Ferrarelle, one of Italy’s favorites.

Despite such exotic bottles from which to quaff, connoisseurs sometimes actually prefer the ordinaire. In a blind taste test of ten waters, organized by New York Times Food Critic Craig Claiborne, all five judges ranked Canada Dry Club Soda—a nonmineral beverage containing “sodium bicarbonate, sodium citrate and artificial flavoring” —as one of their top three selections. Some of the other top choices were strictly all-American: Poland Sparkling Water from Maine, Deer Park from a babble of springs in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut and Pennsylvania, and Saratoga Vichy from Saratoga Springs, N. Y.

Why are so many Americans taking the waters? For a generation of joggers and beansprouters, mineral water is the ultimate health drink: no calories, artificial flavorings, sweeteners or preservatives. “The primary reason for the Perrier craze,” believes Charles Welsh, the company’s Western U.S. sales director, “is that the American life-style is heading toward natural food and drink.” For many people who have grown wary of pollution in their tap water, a bottle of Saratoga or Evian is, pure and simple, just safer than the kitchen faucet.

Not all, of course, consider bottled mineral water the nectar of the ’70s. “I’ve tried Perrier and Poland but I don’t like the bubbles,” admits Lament Richardson, who works for a major New York water supplier. “I’ll stick to the sink.” For Chicago Socialite Donna (“Sugar”) Rautbord, the decision is the same, the reason different. “I don’t want the bubbles,” she spouts. “I hear they contribute to cellulite.” New York Times Columnist Russell Baker does not admit to that particular worry, but he still weeps over the popularity of these waters: the nonalcoholic beverage, he argues, is sounding the last clunk of the ice cube for that most American of social events, the cocktail party. Baker dryly predicts worse to come. “Next year perhaps we will see rooms filled with people holding glasses of mouthwash.” Before America reaches for a Listerine-and-lime, however, Boston TV Pundit Charles Kramer predicts, the nation will be buying up a more logical successor to bottled H2O—simply O: “a line of gourmet air, available only in exclusive shops at a formidable price.”