What Your Favorite Brand of Bottled Water Says About You

From Acqua Panna to Voss

Acqua Panna

You are a masochist who enjoys dining at vaguely European bistro-type places where the menu alone makes your four years of high-school French suddenly seem horribly inadequate.

Aquafina

Aquafina drinkers know themselves. They aren’t pretentious enough for Evian, but they aren’t about to stoop to the level of, say, Dasani. An Aquafina drinker is someone who drives an Acura even though they could have afforded a Mercedes. (Also, they’re probably a middle child.)

Crystal Geyser

I see this at the grocery store occasionally. The bottle is aesthetically pleasing enough, but what. I’ve never seen anyone buy/drink this. Maybe I should become a Crystal Geyser person. I imagine it would feel not unlike voting Nader in a presidential election.

Dasani

Dasani tastes like the water that’s left over after you boil hot dogs. No one drinks Dasani because they like it; they drink it because it’s there. It’s always there.

Ethos

Ethos drinkers are people who aren’t aware of the fact that you can just ask for a cup of ice water at Starbucks. For free.

Evian

Evian is the Rolls-Royce of bottled waters. It tells the world that you have never set foot inside a public school, ever, and also that you don’t care even a little bit about gas prices. All you know is that if it’s good enough for Kim Basinger’s hair, it’s good enough for you, damn it.

Fiji

You liked the pretty bottle. It’s rectangular. It has a toucan on it. Whatever. It wasn’t as expensive as Evian, okay?

Fred

Wait, what?

Ice Mountain

You are a normal person living a normal life. You took a Myers-Briggs test one time, but you don’t remember your results.

Mountain Valley Spring Water

You are very committed to some kind of retro outdoorsy lifestyle that also involves vintage Patagonia jackets and old-timey first-aid kits that would probably be of little use in a real medical emergency.

Nestlé Pure Life

You are a normal person living a normal life. (If you entered a romantic relationship with an Ice Mountain person, however, it would be equivalent a 6 dating a 4. [You would be the 4.])

Penta

You own a portable sauna.

Perrier

This is what an Evian person (who also happens to be a recovering alcoholic) brings to a party, along with a box of dainty onion straws from Dean & Deluca that still has the $12.95 price sticker affixed to it.

Poland Spring

I am convinced that Poland Spring is the exclusive water provider for grim North American office parks.

San Pellegrino

San Pellegrino is basically Perrier for Aquafina drinkers.

Smartwater

Smartwater is for people who are active enough to require extra electrolytes but health-conscious enough to quake in fear at a bottle of neon blue Gatorade and its 35 grams of sugar.

Trump Ice

This no longer exists but was once a very real thing. I know this only because I happened to be at Trump Tower sometime in 2004 and had the good fortune of actually being able to purchase a bottle for probably, like, $6.50.

Volvic

Your best friend, a Penta drinker, helps you cast spells on your upstairs neighbor, who is incidentally a Crystal Geyser person.

Voss

You talk loudly into your Bluetooth while roaming the aisles at Whole Foods. “Epic” is your adjective of choice, and “über” is your favorite adverb. No one likes you.

Claire Christoff likes to fill her Nalgene with tap water (and an equally tepid sense of moral superiority). Follow her on Twitter: @clairexoff