Carrying a bottle of water often seems strange to me. Yes, having water in a pack or even what passes for a canteen these days while hiking or involved in strenuous activities is certainly wise, but having one hand continually carrying a bottle while walking from one store to another in a shopping district? Do they expect to keel over from dehydration on a leisurely stroll? If so, how did we ever manage to survive before that became popular? I wonder how many have ever heard of hyponatremia.

It started in Europe in the 50's with Perrier and Evian sparkling waters being status symbols for the wealthy and those who wanted to appear to be wealthy. Then came similarly-branded "still" waters. It spread to the US sometime later, becoming a big thing in the 70's and 80's with "spring" waters.

In Europe, at least, the trend was fueled by generally poor municipal water quality. No excuse in the US where the water has always been pretty safe (if you're not living in Flint, Mi.)

In fact, most of the bottled water you see in the grocery store actually comes from a municipal or rural water supply. Bottom line, even if you are paying for a bottle of water, you are probably drinking tap water from some locality.

quote:

Originally posted by 400m:
And what did you all do for shows in the 70’s?
Did they sell water in the same waxed paper cups that soda and beer came in, or let you tote your own water in?

In the 60s and 70s, nobody walked around carrying bottles of water in stores, concerts, sporting events, etc. In high school sports, you ran to the drinking fountain to get a drink, same with little league baseball. Occasionally someone would have a Coleman water container and paper cups for games and such. I remember over a dozen kids lining up at the drinking fountain after a hard game of kickball on a hot day during recess. And the workplace, there was the ever present water cooler with disposable cups keeping employees away from their desks for awhile.

I spend a lot of time in Europe and I've never seen people drink tap water there. Every house has cases of bottled water, usually 1 litre glass bottles in crates and every store there takes the empties and refunds the deposits. I buy the plastic stuff, as they don't usually sell the cases of glass ones in gas stations and I buy them as soon as I get the rental car and find a gas station. They also recycle religiously there.

When I was a kid in France where my father was stationed in the late ’50s as I recall we were advised to not drink tap water without boiling it first, but we were also advised to avoid local dairy products. Much later during my five years in Germany I never hesitated to drink tap water, so perhaps the locals’ avoiding it may have been a holdover from earlier practices. Of course when beer by the case could be delivered directly to one’s house ….

Now for drinking I use the 50¢ per gallon fill your own container at the local supermarket. At certain times of day the chlorine in the tap water here almost makes it like drinking from a swimming pool, plus I don’t like how it affects the green tea I drink regularly. I can understand how people may prefer other sources for their water, but it’s still a mystery why some people believe that it literally must be close at hand all the time.

late 80's but mostly the fancy stuff, Perrier etc,


FWIW, most gallon store brand water comes from a dairy plant somewhere, they use the same milk jugs and the plant will have a tap into the city water supply to fill the drinking water,
it may be filtered,

bottle water in small bottles made at the same plant(s) that do the canned beverages,

IIRC canned water was a thing for a short time,

Homes in Fullerton in the 50s-60s had Culligan filters attached to the house service. In 1964 we moved to Oregon. Water is good from the tap.
I took a trip to San Jose in 1998. Saw many water bottle delivery trucks. Then I tasted SJ water. That explained the trucks.
Oregon had a bottle spring water that was excellent. "Earth 2 Oh". But the company near Bend sold and folded. Very sad.

I grew up in Germany and have lived there on and off since the 60's as a civilian and as Active-duty military. Never ever heard of bad municipal water, honestly, I trust it more than our fluoride treated water. And the dirt I see in my water filter here in Georgia is enough to convince me to keep using it.

As a kid we always had a case of Franken Brunnen mineral water on the balcony or in the basement. Depending on the region the brands varied but it was always cheap and not something that had any status associated with it but was considered to be healthy for you because of the minerals.

I fill my own filtered water at home because I refuse to buy all these plastic bottles which are thrown away. I remember helping my uncle exchange cases of mineral water and beer when we went shopping.

People made containers for water for 8500+ years.

we moved into the county in 78,
until then we lived in the city, as did my paternal grandparents,
we both had 'city water' but apparently from different places (there are a few reservoirs as well as the James River for water )
water at home then tasted like water,
grandparents water tasted odd, compared, and they had several algae blooms in the water system ,


well at my shop, and at my home, both taste delicious,

I also recall several water springs in town,
as in a free flowing spring, like a fountain, where you would take some containers (usually the old orange juice gallon glass jars) and fill up for free,

don't think any of those are accessible any longer

quote:

Originally posted by lyman:
IIRC canned water was a thing for a short time,

It still is. There are several companies that offer their water in cans.

I remember the heavy marketing push early 80s at the same time as Starbucks type coffee. The beginnings were in the 70's at the same time my physics teacher was saying that phone calls were going to be over the air and tv signals were going to go to cable. Completely strange concept to me as a high schooler since Sutro Tower was recently erected in Twin Peaks, San Francisco to broadcast TV signals in 1973.

I remember early 80s on a fitness period, I was drinking Calistoga mineral water. The average person pooh poohed the idea that people would pay for water that they can get out of their faucets at home. Same for specialty coffee which, for the price of one cup, can pay for the whole price of a pot of coffee from even a diner.

If I remember correctly in my area the firsts were Fiji water and Evian. Then Poland Spring.

This was in the 80s. I just wish they would go to glass, plastic sucks.

P.T. Barnum invented bottled water...............

Spring water, as in water from a spring coming out of of the ground has been bottled since at least the 1850s.

The drinking water/purified water stuff you see everywhere now started in the 90s I grew up in an extremely affluent area and remember seeing it and thinking it was strange at the time. I grew up on well water but living on a massive sandbar/water filter it was tasty.

We’re on a deepish well in limestone rich eastern WV and the water quality is insanely good. I use a 64 oz stainless bottle and am lucky to be able to avoid plastic bottles.

quote:

Originally posted by LS1 GTO:
Sparklettes, that’s when i figure it became mainstream.

Hmmm… [DIGRESSION mode]Mom always called it an oya (apparently correctly spelled olla), but when I asked the google to figure out the spelling, it just called them “water dispenser”. I guess my google foo leaves much to be desired as it took a couple tries to find the correct spelling.[/DIGRESSION mode]

Anyway, the olla was a large ceramic pot that held an upside down 5 gallon water bottle and had a push button tap to dispense water. The stand underneath was a wooden box open on one side that would hold one bottle upright. The rack in the garage held four bottles. The Sparklettes man drove to the house every week, rolled up the third stall garage door, took away the empties, and replaced them with full bottles. This was happening at least 57 years ago, and I believe only stopped last year when my younger brother put in a reverse osmosis (RO) system and cancelled the service.

As a kid, significant growth milestones were being allowed to carry the empty bottle out to the garage, being allowed to carry full bottles in from the garage, and being allowed to replace the bottle on top of the olla. (Of course after wiping the top of the bottle of with a damp wash cloth and removing the cap.) With four boys in the house, these were kind of a big deal. It became a little less of a big deal, but still important to young boys when Sparklettes switched from glass to plastic five gallon bottles.

Bottled water has been a thing since people have had either unsafe or unpalatable water. Smaller, “personal size” bottles and their proliferation is a more recent development as mentioned above.

Strangely I was contemplating this exact question recently. Growing up in the 70’s &80’s it wasn’t a thing, and as others indicated, people walking around with water or any other beverage in a bottle during routine day to day activity wasn’t common either.

It started being a thing in the 90’s I guess. The marketing of being healthier/ safer came on the heels of a lot of news reports of issues with public water supplies - mostly revolving around heavy metals. More recently there had been a lot of flap about chlorine and fluoride being bad for you so that also pushes the market.

Even from a military perspective up to about 2000, I recall water coming from “ water Buffalo” trailers towed into the field or hanging lister bags. Post 9/11 it was pallet loads of bottled.
I drank so much bottled water during deployments I need to be really desperately thirsty to drink it now.

The Seinfeld Poland Spring Merger episode: