Aquarius Purified Water 500mL Bottle ($2.16)
While eating at a Five Guys hamburger chain I had noticed a particular brand of water I was not familiar with. $2.16 is far below my price threshold for water, but the quality should be consistent. The shoddy plastic bottle and retro label made the price seem excessive but I assume this is to offset the cost of unlimited free peanuts.
I lifted the cap and smelled distinct hues of ethanol and dried pork. These are of course incredibly subtle if not unnoticeable to the untrained consumer; to a professional, however, they are distastefully aromatic.
I proceeded to quaff the water despite its scent and undoubtedly, the taste was tragically similar. A nauseating mix of salt and free radicals. After some research, I had learned that Aquarius is a Brazilian subsidiary of the Coca-Cola owned Dasani. A hierarchy of command is unraveled as we travel further down the water bottle industry’s rabbit hole.
Despite the re-bottling and brand masking afoot, this water fails to pass my stringent standards.
The Water Connoisseur gives this bottle 1.5 Crystal Goblets out of 5.
This water is not recommended for human consumption. Alternate recommended uses include wetting a ladies sleeping bag so that she has no choice but to snuggle up in yours, warping your imbecile cousin’s records so that he grows up and finds a real career, and soaking a shirt in order to freeze it.
Dasani 20oz Plastic Bottle (approx. $1)
Dasani, named after the Indian goddess of moisture, is a water brand owned by the infamous Coca-Cola company. According to legend, Dasani never drank a beverage in her life and yet would salivate, sweat, urinate, and dispel H20 from any and all orifices as needed. The townspeople would visit her during the drought seasons and sing to her so that she may exude water from her body which they would drink, bathe in, and use to irrigate their crops. She also had 7 arms. Coca cola has made a wise strategic move in its water branding.
The bottle boasts an advanced purification process with an ideal mineral blend. It is of a blue hue, differentiating itself from the many clear water bottles out there normally designed so that the buyer can get an accurate image of how clean the water inside is. Not Dasani. They are confident and are requesting your faith in the cleanliness of the water by tinting the bottle so that it is impossible to distinguish whether the water is tinted (dirty) as well as the bottle.
Well Coca Cola, your bottle did indeed fool me into purchasing this water in good faith and I have been punished for my naivety. Dasani tastes like a water that had visited India and neglected to get its vaccine beforehand. I have never drank out of a toilet but I won’t need to use my imagination to simulate the experience. Another troubling detail is that the water is not carbonated yet there are small bubbles layered inside the bottle. Perhaps it is to remain true to life to the Goddess Dasani, who when exuding the water would also occasionally leak her natural bodily functions as needed- and thus there was always a risk of her magical water containing traces of excrete, bodily salts, and various other biological toxins. The negative here is that Coca Cola has distributed an awful tasting bottled water, but the positive is that this water is quite historically accurate.
The Water Connoisseur gives this bottle 1.5 Crystal Goblets out of 5.
This water is not recommended for consumption in the first world, however 3rd world settlements in India may find it to be a nostalgic relic. Further uses may be spraying on cats to stop them from clawing furniture, washing cabbage patch kid hair, and finally, filling four large buckets with Dasani and putting the posts of a bed into those buckets, so that bedbugs are caught and drowned during their attempt to climb into the bed.
