Squinting at the bottled water that was featured, it claims to be from Hawaii’s Mauna Loa, filtered through 14000 feet of volcanic rock before being bottled. Funny thing is that a lot of Big Island water tastes bad enough (sulfur, etc.) that people have to run it through their own filters before they want to drink it. If it comes out of the tap, it tastes bad; if it’s bottled, it’s froo-froo mineral water.
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I like the “First Aid Measures” in the MSDS. Three out of four of them say “in case of contact with this substance, add more of this substance.”
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You probably don’t have the bullshit skills of P&T though. The whole thing is a bit of a confidence game, you bring out an “expert” with a fancy title who is supposed to know all about this stuff and people will believe anything he says. P&T even put a dead spider in one of their bottles, which added so much shock value that the people were almost guaranteed to be off balance before the tasting even started.
But seriously, look at the marketing copy on that bottle of water. It’s laying on the BS so deep and thick that anybody not prepared for it is going to get sucked right in.
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P&T know how to force a mark. They did the organic taste test and in all the cases they plate the organic food on red plates and the standard stuff on blue plates…ever hear of a blue plate special? There’s a reason they serve food on blue plates. Take a look at the youtube of that show and you’ll see the gimmick in action.
Not quite. Only in America. New York had a water sommelier 11 years ago.
blue plate special refers to a specially low-priced meal. What’s your hypothesis?
Unfortunately bottled water is incredibly inefficient and wasteful, particularly over long distances.
We can detect the tastes of different water. We should be able to recreate this via de-mineralized water + the addition of trace minerals, etc.
Not as romantic if’s not expensive/unattainable and planet-killing I guess.
Like we say in Springfield: “If it’s brown drink it down, if it’s black send it back”.
What a rip-off.
Re: Blue Plate Special
The blue plate makes left over food look visually attractive and originally it was served on a blue plate with little sectional bits.
When a lot of the food was over cooked to gray or rewarmed for a couple of days, and covered with heavy white sauce like a chicken fried steak, it would look rather bland if served on white plates.
The Pen Teller bit shows that bit of psychology…along with a ‘left side bias’ in tests.
People usually think food tastes better when served on blue rather than red. We ‘eat with our eyes’ first and color is big part of that.
We should be able to recreate this via de-mineralized water + the addition of trace minerals, etc
We do. It’s called “Dasani Water.” And “Aquafina.”
Local soda bottlers run municipal tap water through their usual purification chain - UV sterilization, high-pressure carbon-block filtration, and finally reverse osmosis which strips out even the minerals.
Then they add a calibrated (and heavily focus-grouped!) mix of minerals back in for flavor, give it a shot of ozone to catch any airborne microbiota that mighta snuck at the tail-end of the bottling line, cap it, and ship it.
Which is pretty much exactly what they do for sodas, except that the sodas get sweeteners and carbonation, too.
Our local bottlers have their own local bottle-making facilities, so the only real shipping is from the local bottlers to the local retailers
It’s not ‘Bottled Spring Water’, it’s “Purified Water.” Like it says on the label.
Purified Water (which must conform to the USP standard for Purified Water, suitable for medical use)., is usually just the local tap water - but with the arsenic and trihalomethane and occasional coliform bacteria and whatnot removed.
Makes a lot more sense than draining groundwater aquifers in Fiji, or shipping glass bottles from Norway.
L.A.'s shame only deepens with that revelation. This is not the first time this scam has been pulled.
I worked at LACMA. Not at Ray’s, mind you. I am not tall and skinny and female enough. But the art world attracts a certain variety of wealthy patron. I don’t think it is just LA. These people specialize in a type of narcissism that actually enjoys demonstrating a profound lack of critical skills. This water thing fits in so well. It is like proof that you did not get where you are by brains, but only through your good looks and charm.
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Rant follows
Hyper-suckage
In a world where over 750 million people don’t have access to decent water and 2.5 billion have no access to sanitation, how can anyone justify taking water, bottling it and spending hell knows how much carbon to transport it to us overweight, over-watered first worlders.
I know I may be a Grinch, but this kind of shit just simply pisses me off.
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Those are some Arrakis prices right there.
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Trust me, most of LA laughs at such antics. If I want a stylish glass bottle of Voss water, I can pick one up at the corner mini-mart for…what, $2.29 I think it was?
A plastic bottle of Fiji water for $10? Ahahahah!
Half those brands (Fiji, Aqua Panna, Gerolsteiner, Pellegrino, Perrier) can be had at Trader Joe’s for the usual TJ’s cut-rate prices (under two bucks a bottle, mostly) The rest are available at almost any liquor store. If anyone really cares.
(Except maybe for “Beverly Hills 90H2O”, - which looks like a great parody.
I mean, really… spring water imported from Northern California, with added Designer Minerals? “[B]atch produced in limited editions of 10,000 individually numbered diamond-like glass bottles”? With, of course, luxe ‘Beverly Hills’ branding - always popular with the marks!
Hahahahaha! Just priceless.)
As a semi-frequent museum-goer, yeah, you’re sure right about Ray’s. 
The furniture is curated, the water is curated - why, I’ll bet even the potted plants are curated.
Personally, I go across the street and get something tasty from one of the food trucks. And a bottle of locally-sourced low-carbon-footprint Dasani Water, probably.
If anyone is interested here’s a link to making clones of most popular bottled water.
Complete with science and a spread sheet.
I have a soda stream and I’ve added a touch of Epson Salt and Baking soda to bottle of fizzy water…and it does rather smooth out the taste but not really that profound of a addition.
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Here is an interesting tie in. If you are sitting at the stark bar and looking west you are looking at the Resnick Pavilion. Paid for partly with money made by selling Fijian water to clueless American consumers. The Resnicks own Fiji water as well as just about every pomegranate plant in this hemisphere. They had to sell off their interest in Franklin Mint to gain enough credibility to get traction in the art world, though. There are limits after all.
