Because if you come across a spring in nature, the water is emerging from an aquifer after having been filtered through hundreds of feet of sand and sediment, and is likely to contain far fewer contaminants than the water from further down the same spring-fed stream, as fewer fish have had the chance to shit in it. So spring water is indeed important for good health.
Or at least it was if you were following the Oregon Trail across the plains in the 1800s, and didn’t want to die of dysentery.
It’s a good marketing strategy today because it contains a tiny grain of historic truth buried at its center, and marketing people just love that kind of bullshit. That one word conveys all that imagery.
For contrast, imagine driving past a billboard for Microsoft selling bottled water: “Microsoft Water has been purified through a reverse osmosis filter and three carbon filtration layers, the first of which is designed to trap 2.5 micron (0.0000984252 inch) particles, the next traps 1.0 micron ( 0.00003937008 inch) particles, and the last traps 0.5 micron (0.00001968504 inch) particles. The water is also treated with 395nm wavelength UV/A light to sterilize bacteria. All water is continuously monitored and tested during production. Don’t forget to download our app to activate your water through our online registration system. It’s easy and only takes 10 minutes.”
Same water, just marketed by different idiots. One of these will attract a specific but very small audience, and the other is just pushing crates out the door to people who care almost nothing about it.
Citation needed. Humans have been drinking directly from rivers, lakes, and all other fresh water sources lying around for millions of years. Only recently did people decide it must come from a “mountain spring” or it’s fatal.
Waterborne illness does exist (beaver fever comes to mind) but it was not a particular problem until humans started living in cities and pooping in their own drinking water.
Hopefully the aquifer hasn’t been disturbed by anything like old mines, or other work, and there’s no natural contamination. Also, are they pumping more water out of the aquifer than it can replenish, possibly resulting in less safe water seeping in?
You seem to have missed the “not a particular problem” part.
There’s a huge difference between “it happens occasionally to someone once in a while” and “OMG all water must be from a mountain spring or you’ll get sick”.
The person I was replying to was making a claim of clinical outcomes. “Drinking from a mountain spring is healthier”. That’s a very bold claim requiring more evidence than “waterborne illness exists in some tiny percentage in nature”. Clinical outcomes require statistical significance. A non-zero chance of getting sick from something does not warrant whole-scale avoidance of that thing. If you think it does, then I assume you’ll never get in a car or cross the street again.
Scare quotes aside (Budweiser is beer), I think this is a great use of A-B’s resources. Their water source is clean, and as you point out, their distribution network means they can get supplies where they are needed quickly. And as I was going to respond to OP, while I don’t like packaged water in a non-disaster setting generally, if we’re gonna have it available, I would prefer aluminum be used rather than plastic. Way more recyclable, hermetically sealed, and packs tighter than bottles.
That was cited as one of the reasons why they did canned water as opposed to bottled. The owner of the company donates a portion of the profits to a program to clean up plastic trash, at least that’s what their web site says.
The cans are also somewhat more sturdy than the wafer-thin plastic bottles that water is normally being poured into.
I can only imagine your disappointment being similar to when I bought a can of Cherry Limade branded something Bold, and instead of a Sparkling Ice type lemonade-esque drink, I got a LaCroix weak sauce that made me physically sad.
Olympia was one of our favorite beers in high school mostly because of the Oly 55, a big plastic globe filled with beer in a wax lined box ready made to dump in a couple bags of ice.
Our intramural floor hockey team was named The Artesians, played at night after consuming plenty of Oly in the parking lot.
Before science, nobody thought much about water quality beyond a couple of simple categories, like “foul”, “brackish”, “salt”, or “good”. That’s how humans have perceived water sources for a long time, and that’s why marketers sell bottled “spring” water – it checks the simplistic “good” box.
Thanks for sharing.
:
Anticipation / Anticipation is making me late …
