2008 Woodie Awards
Flavored waters make hydration interesting
U-Wire
Issue date: 10/16/07 Section: Features
DALLAS (U-WIRE) - Plenty of zero-calorie flavored waters now line shelves at convenience stores and super markets, and they make meeting that daily 64-ounce quota much more palatable. These waters are often sweetened with sucralose (Splenda), a great sugar knock-off (think Aquafina FlavorSplash, Dasani flavored waters, etc.).
But like its artificial sweetner predecessors, sucralose has its critics. Whole Foods Market won't sell products made with the sweetner because, among other reasons, it's a chlorinated compound.
Whether or not sucralose is the safest sweetner on the market, flavored waters don't have to be sweet at all. Here's some unsweetened H 2 O that makes hydration tasty, not a task. (I found these at Whole Foods and Central Market, but I've seen Metromint at several other stores, too).
METROMINT
Web site: metromint.com
Flavors: Peppermint, spearmint, lemonmint, orangemint
Ingredients: Purified water and mint; the fruit flavors also have orange essence or lemon essence
Description: Metromint is the only brand of this lot to offer a cool mint aftertaste in all its bottles. It was the first "essence water" to hit my radar a couple of years ago, and I absolutely fell in love with it. But since then, competitors have hit the shelves with more flavors to choose from than M.M.'s mere four.
Bonus: Each flavor's "chill factor" is displayed on the front of the bottle, with peppermint being the coolest and orangemint being the least minty. Sleek, skinny packaging, too.
Score: 4 out of 5 lunch bags
HINT
Web site: drinkhint.com
Flavors: There's a revolving door of flavors, but the ones you can buy from the Web site are mango grapefruit, pomegranate-tangerine, lime, raspberry-lime, peppermint, pear, tropical punch, strawberry kiwi, cucumber
Ingredients: Purified water, each respective flavor's fruit, other natural flavors
Description: Hint scores points by offering the unexpected cucumber flavor and a wide variety of other flavors. I haven't seen all of them on shelves, however. Hint gives Metromint a run for its money with its peppermint flavored water, but M.M.'s is still crisper and cooler. I'm a fan of the mint, but of the fruity flavors I've tried (raspberry-lime, tropical punch, pear and lime), my favorite is a toss-up between pear and lime. Choose dehydration over tropical punch, though - it inexplicably tastes like lipstick.
Bonus: Each flavor comes with a little ditty on the side called "From the Hinterland." I.e., the pear flavor gives an informative graph all about the Bartlett pear ("Enoch Bartlett was a Massachusetts nurseryman ..."), while tropical punch asks the inane question, "Why is an orange named for its color, while the pineapple is neither pine nor apple?"
Score: 4 out of 5 lunch bags
O WATER
Web site: owater.com
Flavors: strawberry, Mandarin orange, lemon and lime, wild berry
Ingredients: Purified/distilled water, each respective variety's natural fruit flavor, potassium sorbate
Description: If you want water that tastes like you actually squeezed a bit of fruit in it, this is your water
But like its artificial sweetner predecessors, sucralose has its critics. Whole Foods Market won't sell products made with the sweetner because, among other reasons, it's a chlorinated compound.
Whether or not sucralose is the safest sweetner on the market, flavored waters don't have to be sweet at all. Here's some unsweetened H 2 O that makes hydration tasty, not a task. (I found these at Whole Foods and Central Market, but I've seen Metromint at several other stores, too).
METROMINT
Web site: metromint.com
Flavors: Peppermint, spearmint, lemonmint, orangemint
Ingredients: Purified water and mint; the fruit flavors also have orange essence or lemon essence
Description: Metromint is the only brand of this lot to offer a cool mint aftertaste in all its bottles. It was the first "essence water" to hit my radar a couple of years ago, and I absolutely fell in love with it. But since then, competitors have hit the shelves with more flavors to choose from than M.M.'s mere four.
Bonus: Each flavor's "chill factor" is displayed on the front of the bottle, with peppermint being the coolest and orangemint being the least minty. Sleek, skinny packaging, too.
Score: 4 out of 5 lunch bags
HINT
Web site: drinkhint.com
Flavors: There's a revolving door of flavors, but the ones you can buy from the Web site are mango grapefruit, pomegranate-tangerine, lime, raspberry-lime, peppermint, pear, tropical punch, strawberry kiwi, cucumber
Ingredients: Purified water, each respective flavor's fruit, other natural flavors
Description: Hint scores points by offering the unexpected cucumber flavor and a wide variety of other flavors. I haven't seen all of them on shelves, however. Hint gives Metromint a run for its money with its peppermint flavored water, but M.M.'s is still crisper and cooler. I'm a fan of the mint, but of the fruity flavors I've tried (raspberry-lime, tropical punch, pear and lime), my favorite is a toss-up between pear and lime. Choose dehydration over tropical punch, though - it inexplicably tastes like lipstick.
Bonus: Each flavor comes with a little ditty on the side called "From the Hinterland." I.e., the pear flavor gives an informative graph all about the Bartlett pear ("Enoch Bartlett was a Massachusetts nurseryman ..."), while tropical punch asks the inane question, "Why is an orange named for its color, while the pineapple is neither pine nor apple?"
Score: 4 out of 5 lunch bags
O WATER
Web site: owater.com
Flavors: strawberry, Mandarin orange, lemon and lime, wild berry
Ingredients: Purified/distilled water, each respective variety's natural fruit flavor, potassium sorbate
Description: If you want water that tastes like you actually squeezed a bit of fruit in it, this is your water
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