Martin Riese: Water Sommelier Destr*ys 90% of Bottled Water Brands | DSH #1641

The problem is, there is no pure water on this planet. It doesn't exist because water always has minerals dissolved.
And you can measure them by TDS, total dissolved solids.

And the more minerals combined in a water, the stronger will taste the water. So it's kind of like cooking a soup with no salt tasteless.

You're adding a little seasoning to your soup, and suddenly the soup tastes good. The same with water.
So you're adding actually minerals. A fancy word is electrolytes.
Other people will call it salt.

It's all the same. Like sodium is a salt electrolyte and a mineral.
We all know how social media is. You need a little clickbait sometimes for people actually paying attention to get your through.

So that was the idea behind the $100,000 Marvel. That makes sense.

Okay guys, another fun episode today. We got Martin here.
Water Somalier brought six different six. Yeah, six or seven.
Seven different six and one we cannot taste. Okay.

One is more like decoration, but I will tell you a little story about it. Beautiful.
Well, yes, so he's a water somalier. You must be the first one to ever hold that title, right?

I don't want to say the first one. Like we have more in Europe.
And I'm originally from Europe. I think everybody can tell.

I'm not from South Texas what people think sometimes no I'm I'm German obviously I came to the country in 2011 based on an O1 visa extraordinary ability visa based on my knowledge of water wow and then from there I got a green card and now I'm a citizen even so I'm very proud to be an American and German let's go and you used to be a wine somalier right yes I like wine too so you transition to water because you like water there's like millions of wine somaliers why I should do what everybody else does and The history of my idea with water came actually as a childhood already.

Like I realized when I was four, five, six years old, up north I'm from the Danish border, from a very small town, Aventoft. It's like 400 people living there, but it's directly on the North Sea.

So I was grown up by water, and on vacation time with my parents, I was just fascinated about the different tap waters in Europe. They all tasted differently to me.

And then many years later, in 2005, I worked in the Hotel Palace in Berlin at the restaurant first floor, Samichelster Restaurant, as the general manager.

And a guest came to me and said, hey, Martin, you have over a thousand different wines, but you're just serving one brand of water. And he didn't like the taste of that particular brand.

And he asked me, what else do you have for me? And I looked at him, I remind myself a little bit of my childhood. And then I thought, like, in the restaurant, it's all about options.

You have a wine menu, you have different liquors on, you have

different taps on beers. Like, you have so many options, but when it comes to water, our most important beverage in our lives, without that, we wouldn't sit here.

We're just saying, still sparkling or flat or tap what do you want. No, water has taste.
Why not give you an option? So, from that, I had this idea of a water menu in 2005.

So, it's not an LA thing, what people sometimes think, because I live in Los Angeles. I'm like, oh, it's so LA to be a water summer here.

No, I did this in 2005 already in Germany. And then again, in 2011, I came to the States.
In 2012, I had my first water menu in the States. But I'm considered the first water menu in America.
Nice.

Even at restaurants to this day, like, their water selection is pretty weak. Yeah, I know.

And it's kind of sad because, let's be honest, I heard you had somebody, a mafiozo, already here in the rooms at one point the water business is crazy and in my opinion it's a very messy industry and there are some big very big companies out there who trying to they're buying their way in into the restaurants and they're saying okay you have to carry these two waters and you're not allowed to carry anything else right and they're giving you money for it per year or every two years or whatever they kind of a deal make and in my opinion it's so wrong because again it's all about the guests i think in a restaurant and not about making on the side some side hustle money.

I don't like that. So for me it drives me nuts when I'm going to an American restaurant why I need to see two Italian brands what I can see at the grocery store everywhere.

That doesn't make sense for me. And I was just in Houston for a great water tasting over there and I went to an American restaurant steakhouse and they gave me these two Italian brands again.

And I was like, this is crazy. We're in Houston in an American steakhouse.
Why I need to drink two not American waters.

We have amazing American waters here in the United States, great waters out of a glass bottle. There's no need, in my opinion, when you just have one water to ship that in from Europe.
100%.

Yeah, stadiums.

Stadiums and airports are really tough, too. Yeah, I know.
LA has actually got the glass Evian, but most of the time. Most airports are tough.
Yeah, so shout out to LA, but most airports are awful.

The only problem what I have with LAX, with the International Airport in Los Angeles, so they banned all plastic bottles by water. The sodas are still okay in plastic.

Like, what kind of crazy thing is that?

Like, when you're already banning plastic bottles, so the healthy beverage is banned now in plastic, but the unhealthy beverage you can still purchase in plastic.

And very interesting, all bottled water is more expensive than sodas.

So, I have a feeling somehow, that's my conspiracy theory when it comes to LAX, that the big soda companies actually is greenwashing the idea of plastic is bad and they want to push their sodas. Wow.

That's a good theory. I mean if you look at the numbers yeah water that's that's crazy.
$8 for a water bottle at the airport. It's not okay.

And second, I can have a Coca-Cola or a Pepsi or whatever into a can as well. So why it's okay when you're banning plastic bottles, why are you not banning plastic bottles for sodas? Yeah.

There's something off with that idea. Now, I'm sure you've seen a ton of water trends.
Right now, it seems like the hydrogen water is the trend. What do you think of that?

Like, for 10 years ago, everybody freaked out about pH or alkaline. They all went nuts about it.
And they said, like, oh, this is

the new hype.

We found the fountain of youth and all this kind of stuff about pH. And when you think about what is actually pH means, your body has different pH levels, not just one.

And the idea of alkaline water is when I drink this, I can balance out my acidic body. You don't want to mess with the pH levels.

Your body is very regulated through your lungs and your kidneys about the different pH levels, not just one. Your blood is 7.35 to 7.45, everything a little bit higher or down your dead.

You don't want to mess with that pH.

And second, where does actually water go when I'm drinking it? It will go into my very acidic stomach, 1.5 to 3.5, super acidic, to break down nutritions and to kill mycobacteria.

Imagine it would be true then people would drink alkaline water to balance out their acidic body, they would have food poisoning every day.

Lucky us, it's not. So for me, it's the same with hydrogen water.
They're adding more hydrogen, what already water has, H2O. There's already hydrogen dissolved in water.

And there are studies been done and they're all going to PubMed and all this kind of stuff. I saw the studies.
But pretty much all studies are saying we need more research.

Second, most studies were done by animals.

And third, they don't even know how much hydrogen you maybe need to have maybe an impact. So everything says always maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe.

And then when you see the price point of hydrogen water, like a can for $6 or $7 at a grocery store, I don't see the benefit of maybe there is a benefit to justify a $7 or $8 water now for me.

So for me right now, I'm not drinking that. I'm like, nah.
I don't blame you, man. Have you seen the oxygen water, the Ophora? $30 for the...
That's crazy.

And the funny thing about that brand is literally they are having this hyperoxynated, nanopure.

terrible word and all this kind of claims on the front label when you're turning to the back label they're saying everything what we said on the front label is not FDA approved.

They're doing this for reasons of legal reasons because they would get sued their asses off to all these claims. So it's already debunked on their own label.
Crazy.

Yeah, they used to, so I'll be honest, they used to sponsor the show, they would send bottles, and then I found out they use LA Tap Water.

I think Santa Barbara tap. Yeah, Munister.
The company is out of Santa Barbara. Yeah, so it got me thinking, like, what percentage of water companies are you just using tap water? water?

60% right now. 60%.

60% on the shelves. What you find in the stores is nothing else than your tap water.
And that is the scary part. And this is the sad part, actually.

I was just at Prim when I drove over and I did a video on my socials about, look, I found the most scariest place on earth when it comes to hydration because they just had sodas and purified water brands.

So there was not even one spring water in that whole store. Wow.
And it literally freaked me out. In Germany, where I'm from, it's the other way around.

you don't find any purified water brands because why I should be buying stuff what I can make at home

and I get it like for example pure life what you can buy at Costco like super cheap 30 bottles for I don't know five bucks or whatever that is I totally get it when when when you don't have a filter at home you want to have like good bottled water in a small little container for your kids to go to school or whatever i totally get it why they're doing this yeah so for me i'm not fully against purified water i'm more about when they're starting to build a crazy marketing story around that, like

Ophora with the oxygen water and then charging tons of money for it. Or smart water, what they're doing about, oh,

we are ultra-purifying. It's vapor-distilled.
Great word. No, it's boiled up tap.
That's what that means. Boiled up tap is vapor distilled.
That's crazy. So, and that is for me like all this comes.

Then Essentia, who's saying, like, oh, but we are 9.5 pH.

The holy grail of pH numbers sounds like yeah it doesn't do any shit like it yeah will hydrate you but nothing else yeah all these claims are crazy yeah you don't like the word pure in terms of water also yeah let's let's be honest I'm from Germany I think like for political reasons this word used to be very misleaded in Germany in a very bad way and we are very and I'm very lucky and happy and I and I want to say to all veterans who fought the Second World War when they're still alive thank you so much for all your service to kick this maniac out of my country where I'm coming from.

Because obviously, Adolf Hitler was a completely insane and maniac and totally disgusting person. And I'm happy.
And for me, I just said it in another podcast at H3, actually, with Ethan Klein.

I just talked about this topic a little bit, and I said, like, the only downside to his, because he committed suicide with his wife, I think it was the easy way out for that guy. For sure.

Because it would have been way better to let him rot in jail to see how liberal we became in Germany and how we open-minded now are in Germany about different cultures. He would hate that.

You would hate that and this is way better than to kill people.

So no, that's facts though. Yeah.
Yeah, so pure is a fancy word. I totally get it.
Like everybody always says like, yeah, my water is pure and your water is pure. Water should be pure.

The problem is there is no pure water on this planet. It doesn't exist because water always has minerals dissolved.
And you can measure them by TDS, total dissolved solids.

And the more minerals combined in a water, the stronger will taste the water. So it's kind of like cooking a soup with no salt tasteless.

You're adding a little seasoning to your soup, and suddenly the soup tastes good.

The same with water. So you're adding actually minerals.
A fancy word is electrolytes. Other people will call it salt.

It's all the same. Like sodium is a salt, electrolyte, and a mineral.
And the funny part is, we all know Darzani, and we all hate it. It's like the number one most hated water in America.

Think about it. They're owned by Coca-Cola.
I heard this. It's kind of like a big soda company, what I heard.

They came up last year with a new Darzani product. They changed the labels a little bit and put big ads out now without salt.
And I was like, what the hell is that?

I looked a little bit deeper into it. So there was a Reddit conspiracy theory that Darzani, owned by Coca-Cola, adding salt to the water to make you thirstier in amusement parks.
I saw that.

Yeah, yeah. And I was laughing my ass off because when you think about what's actually in Stasani, the TDS is 28.
It's super low. Your Vegas tap water is between 200 and 400 TDS.
Wow.

Like there is barely anything in there. So what they're doing, they're filtering everything out and adding back some minerals for the taste reason.

They called it salt on the intricitious label and the TDS was 28. The same people who freaked out about that bought smart water, what comes from the same company, Coca-Cola.

It has the same TDS, 28, because they love the electrolytes. It is the same, guys.

Electrolytes is the same word like salts.

But now they're promoting it as without salt now. So think about it, that a billion-dollar company like Coca-Cola is, was listening to conspiracy theorists on Reddit to change their formulation.

And in my opinion, they change it even worse now. Wow.
Because they already had in the beginning not enough good minerals dissolved in that water.

And that's the reason people thought they may be thirstier because water is a universal solvent, it will look for minerals everywhere.

And when water doesn't have any minerals dissolved, it will look for minerals in your saliva. So, you drink this super low TDS water, and it will dry up your mouthfeel.

It will pull minerality from your saliva, and then you have this dry mouthfeel. So, people thinking it makes you thirstier, but actually it's the other way around.

You should have more minerals to make you actually better hydrating, and you have a better mouthfeel to it. But Dasani chose to do it the other way around.
Crazy. Interesting.
Crazy. Wow.

So it actually is hydrating you then. You just feel like every water will hydrate you.
Every liquor will hydrate you. Like every beer will even hydrate you.

Too much alcohol obviously will have a counter effect at one point. The same with coffee.
Your morning coffee is fully hydrating. Really? Yes, this is a myth as well.

This idea of coffee will dehydrate you in the morning.

Coffee is 98% water. The same with tea.
There's more water into your coffee that you can actually pee out due to the effect of the coffee in later on. I wonder where that myth started.

That's interesting. Should you drink just coffee day in and day out for hydration? Absolutely not.

It's the same with a soda. A soda will actually hydrate you.
Is it healthier to drink all the time sodas? Absolutely not, because tons of sugars in there.

So water is obviously the most healthiest beverage, but every liquid pretty much will hydrate you. So there's always water dissolved in every liquid.
Wow. Do you still drink tap water?

I know you mentioned earlier you drank it in Europe a lot.

I taste it every day. I just had flamingo tap water, and I have a running gag that I'm tasting always on my social accounts, the tap water in the restrooms.
So I'm going into the restrooms.

It's like a worse spot. Yeah, sure, and I'm drinking there, and then people are always saying, how can you do this? It's the same tap water then right in front of

the restroom what you have in the water fountains. It's tap water.
Oh, it's the same. Yeah, sure, it's the same.

When they have maybe in the water fountains, maybe a filter built in, great, but that's not the real taste of the tap water anymore. Now they're treating it.

I want the taste what the municipal source water is actually doing. And I know most of the times in restrooms, they don't play with any filter systems.

This is like the stuff what you actually get out of your taps.

So I'm always tasting this. And let's be honest,

when I would live in Las Vegas, the same in Los Angeles actually, I highly recommend get yourself a filter

or buy bottled water. But I would not drink untreated

unfiltered tap water here in Las Vegas. So so yeah it's

and I understand it's a tough job for them it's we're living in the desert here I totally get it the water comes from like meat from the Cuanado River I understand why it's so hard to even get kind of like water into the city so I'm not even I don't want to bash them from a taste perspective I would not drink that yeah is New York the best tap water you've had um they are good waters Alaska has very good water that makes sense yeah my wife lives in Alaska she works there we have a long distance relationship no wonder I have a happy relationship because I see my wife four times per year.

You got the formula down, man. Yeah, so this is great.
This works perfectly for both of us. We don't get on our nerves and nothing.
And she's a very strong woman, and I have a very strong personality.

And this is just easier for both of us.

Alaska has very good water. New York actually has very cool tap water.

And there's this infamous story, for sure, you heard it as well, that the bagels and the pizzas are better in New York than everywhere else.

So I looked into it and I wanted to know: is this really true, or is this maybe a gimmick?

So what's happening? So the water comes from the Cat Mountains in New York. It drives down by gravity into the city.
That's the reason just buildings higher than five floors need a water tower.

All other waters don't have a water tower because there's enough pressure coming from the mountains. What is a pretty cool story already?

The second really cool thing is why this infamous story exists.

The tap water in New York is very soft. That means it lacks especially calcium magnesium.
Gluten and bread will react better to soft water than to hard water.

So yes, there's actually a fact to it that the gluten and bread reacts better to the soft water in New York. And therefore the pizza and the bagels are better.
I was just there.

It's night and day better. Yes.
I mean it sucks out in the west coast. And let's be honest, the more rain you have in a country, the better is the tap water because they have more abundant to water.

That's pretty much what that is. Yeah.
Because we're getting our water in Los Angeles as well.

Certain parts obviously

from the north of California, but a lot from the Colorado River as well. The Colorado River is pretty far away from Los Angeles.
Think about it.

To pump that water into the city of Los Angeles, that's a lot of miles. Obviously, they have to treat it to make sure it's safe.
That's the reason

I'm a big fan of...

investing in your infrastructure and I know this country is a little bit lagging behind it right now.

It's very, very important to save money for infrastructure because we need good water for everybody. There's around 2 million people in this country not even have tap water.
What? Yes.

2 million people living without taps. That's crazy.
In this country. Is that like Midwest? Yeah, yeah, and I'm not even saying without clean and safe drinking water.

That's one out of four people right now on this planet. I'm talking about 2 million people don't even have running tap water at home.
Wow. That is crazy.
That's not crazy. We need to change that.

Yeah, that's crazy. Like, I cannot believe this, that we are still there.
Yeah, I didn't know that. That's our country.

Where do you stand on this whole microplastic debate? Because I just saw the liquid death CEO debate about this. Let's be honest.

Obviously, microplastic is something that we don't want to have in our wardrobe. There's not really long-time studies been done

how much impact it will have eventually on our bodies, but I don't think it's a positive thing to have microplastic. Let's be honest.
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What people don't know, most of our microplastic does not come from water. It's a topic because you see a plastic bottle and then they're all freaking out about microplastic.

In In your sodo, this is microplastic as well, guys. Don't think it's just a bottled water problem.
Most of the microplastic actually comes from car tires. Oh, wow.

Yes, that's the main source of microplastic in this country. So we're just inhaling the

indirect use of car tires and we're inhaling this. This is actually the choice.
Oh, it goes into the landfills from the rundown of our tires. Rain comes down, it passes through different stone layers.

And this is where all the microplastic comes from. So that is actually the real problem.
It's not a liquid death company. It's not a Dasani company.
It's actually car tires. That makes sense.

That's a huge problem. Oh my crap.
I never looked at it that way. Yeah, yeah.
So

I think, and again, like,

I'm a fan of plastic. No.
The best container is for me still glass. I understand why people are using cans.
I understand why people are using plastic bottles.

Plastic bottles are actually not that bad when it comes from an idea of it's pretty lightweighted, doesn't get destroyed. So I can drop a bottle of water right here or at the pool area.

That's the reason hotels prefer, obviously, plastic or cans.

In Los angeles they're changing it now to cans pretty much you're not allowed to bring a plastic bottle or even a glass bottle to your pool anymore so they're all switching to to aluminium but yes in aluminium there is a liner of plastic or there's a a color like i want to say color but like a painting what uh distract the water from the aluminium yeah and i saw a lot of different ways yeah a lot of brands are switching to aluminum right correct yeah and do you think that's um better than plastic or do you think it's doesn't even matter that much i don't want to say it matters this much the good benefit about aluminium is it holds the beverage better on the temperature standpoint.

So, from a pleasure standpoint, aluminium makes more sense to me because we all know like when you're buying two sodas, one in a can and one in a plastic container, the can is tastes way much better and it actually holds the temperature way longer than your plastic bottle.

So, I think for the pleasure idea, the can makes way more sense. But again, for me, as a water sommelier, I love glass.
That's for me my main focus.

I always try to drink everything out of a glass container. Same here.
I order the five gallons to my house. Great.
For the dogs. Great.
You know, I want my dogs to drink a glass too. No, I get it.

I totally get it. Or get yourself a very good filter system.

I just, like, since a month, like, because I'm always saying I'm not a billboard, so I'm very selective what I'm doing with companies or not, because I'm getting for sure the same with you.

I'm getting a lot of

emails about, like, oh, Martin, we love your content. We want this and this and this on your site.
And I was like, yeah, I'm not a billboard.

I'm not working for the Formula One and have like plastered here water companies all over me. That's not my thing.
Yes, I'm helping water companies. I have to make money somehow.
That's my job.

I'm helping water companies and liquor companies and beer companies and I help sometimes as well filter systems, but I want to oversee what they're doing and I want to test it for myself.

And I just tested, it's called Delta Faucet. This appliance company, what you see in the stores sometimes.
And they came up with a very cool system.

It's an RO, sort of reverse osmos system, what's considered like one of the best filter systems because it literally filters everything out.

The downside to RO is it filters out the healthy minerals as well.

And that's a problem. Because I want the minerals.
So what they came up with, they have a refilling cat ridge where minerals are dissolved.

So I'm bringing the water pretty much to a TDS of one or two, like super low, and then I'm bringing it back up to around 100 TDS. Oh, wow.
From my taste perspective, it's way better.

From my body perspective, it's way better because your body wants minerals. So I like that system.
I tested it out for two months now and I really enjoyed it. My cat loves it.
She drinks it as well.

Yeah, I'm a cat daddy. She loves it.
That's a good sign. So I'm very happy about that system.
That's good. It's great.
I'm using my coffee now for it. Wow.
Great. I need to look into that.

I was just going to ask you, because most filters, I feel like, are BS, right? Yeah, there's a lot of. Because Brita's getting sued right now.
Like, Brita, let's be honest.

When you think a $20 Brita filter... can filter out PFAFs,

then you're dehydrated. That's my biggest insult always when I'm saying to people, like, I think you're dehydrated.
That's for me, you're crazy. Yeah.
I'm sorry.

Like, why is an O system like seven, eight, or thousand dollars worth and a Britter filter 20? Yeah, sure. There's a quality difference.

It's the same when you think a Porsche is the same like a Prius. They're both cars.
They're driving from A to B, but it's a totally different like feeling when you're driving these things.

It's the same with filter systems. That makes sense.
Like when a $20 Britter will literally just get rid of chlorine. That's all what they're doing.
And that's it. Yeah.

There are better Brita filters out there as well, but at $20 from Walmart, sorry, guys. Sorry.
We're at the point now where if you want a really good one, I feel like you're dropping thousands.

Yeah, that's just the real thing. The Delta, I saw $7.99, I think, on

Home Depot right now. So it's not that expensive.
That's not bad. I was surprised as well.
I thought it was way more expensive. Yeah.
Do you have a shower one too? Yeah. Yeah.

I have a shower filter hat as well from Delta Faucet. It's great.
Night and day. I need to do it.
Your hair, your skin, totally different immediately. Really? After two days, you feel it.

Yeah, because out here, if you don't have a filter, do it, you're screwed. This is the problem with chlorine.
The chlorine drives your skin nuts.

And my wife, she's dying her hair sometimes. And when she's in a very highly chlorine pool, her hair will look blue or turkey suddenly.
Holy crap.

Because this chlorine will actually engage with your hair and with everything else. So I highly recommend get yourself a shower filter.
They are under $100. They are really not expensive.

And by this being said, that's very, very important, guys, when you get yourself a filter. You have to maintain your filter.
Don't think that I bought one and now I'm good to go.

It's like a sponge, guys. A filter is a sponge.
and all the contaminants going into this filter at one point this sponge is filled up.

That's the reason you should be changing when you have a sponge at your kitchen change it out weekly guys. Weekly at least.

That thing is contamination

0.500,000 times. There's everything in that thing.
So it looks maybe clean but mycobacteria is a real thing. We all know this now I think.

So please be careful a little bit with your sponges and especially with water filtration systems and the more sophisticated filters will tell you when to change they have they have systems built in and there's an app connected to it and they will tell you it's time to change me great advice I'll definitely get one this week should we do this water taste yeah I'm thirsty I'm getting thirsty we got six brands so I brought six different waters and again a lot of people are always questioning come on Martin it's all the same It's water.

I was just at the Wall Street Journal an article the day before yesterday. And when you see the comments, it's hilarious.
Man, it's hilarious. I have a tap water.

Why is he talking about your tap is clearly not an eskilde from Denmark, guys? Like, it's different. I know it's called all water.
It's the same with wine.

We're all calling it wine, but there's Cabernet Savillon's, there's Merlots, there's Pinot Noirs, there's Chardonnays, there are Rieslings, there are so many other grapes.

They all taste differently, guys. So because you have tap at home does not mean you have the universal taste of water suddenly at home.

Your tap maybe is great or your tap maybe is disgusting. So even there are differences.
So I brought six different brands. They're all coming from the same source, because it's rainwater at one point.

All the water is in the water cycle. Every water, what we have on this planet, is billions of years old.

We are not running out of water.

I know this is

a political topic. We are running out of water.
No, we are not. We have the same amount of water since billions of years on this planet.

It's around 360, oh no, 356 million trillion gallons of water, what we have on this planet. Wow.
And it's recycled all the time. All the time.

The problem what we're facing, why people think we're running out of water, is more in certain areas. Like here in Las Vegas or Los Angeles, when it doesn't rain for eight months, we have a problem.

We saw Lake Mead. I've been there for 10 years ago.
It looked fine. Now look at it.
It's scary how the water came down, the water levels.

So the problem is, and this is due to this planet gets warmer and warmer. I don't want to say climate change because it's a political topic again.
What is crazy? It's not just here, guys.

In Europe, we have climate change as well. So it's not based on a political party.

It's a fact because I've been to one or several water companies who are not in existence anymore due to climate change. Wow.
Because it's drying up their wells.

So the problem is in some areas it gets too dry. In other areas we have too much water now.
It rains way too much and way too heavenly.

We had for three years ago in Germany suddenly crazy floods, what we never had before. People died actually.
It's unusual that people are dying in Germany for like natural catastrophes.

And we had a lot of of people dying because we had way too much rain. So yes, that is a problem.
So we are not running out of water. The distribution of water is messed up.
Big difference.

So all these waters coming from the same source. It's rained water at one point.
They're coming down almost like distilled because the TDS is almost zero when it's rain.

That's what Mother Nature's distilling process is. And now they're passing through different stone layers, depending on the different grounds.

By wine, we're calling it terra, that a Riesling from Germany tastes totally different than a Riesling harvested maybe in California.

Same grape, should taste the same, but it doesn't. It's all about the grounds where the water has been passed through, and therefore water is the most 100% Terra-driven beverage on this planet.

Like wine. So let's taste some.
So let's go, let's start with America, obviously. Saratoga, a very famous brand.
I love the blue, cobalt blue glass bottles.

There's another great brand, Mountain Valley Springs. Yeah, I saw it once.
I saw it once in your podcast as well.

Both great waters. And for me, these are like the most classic and superior waters in the States.
Mountain Valley and Saratoga. These are the two brands you want to have in restaurants.

That makes sense because this is in America. We're here in America.
Even I'm background German and I love my German waters. But as a house water, no.
Do not support European brands.

That drives me nuts. I'd like, no, I live in America.
I want American water. It would be the same when I'm in Europe.

We have like 500 different water brands in Germany and I would see Saratoga suddenly. I would call them out that as well.
The other way around. I would say you guys are crazy.

Okay. Saratoga, low in minerality, TLS of 40.
So you will see the numbers getting up and up and up. Let's taste the first water.

Smells like water and hopefully it tastes like water, huh?

Yeah.

It's smooth, refreshing. I have them on room temperature on purpose because when you chill down on water extremely, you're numbing up your taste abilities.
Interesting.

That's the reason ice cube or like ice cream, let's say, tastes very good in the summertime when you have your first spoons.

But the last spoon, when the ice is like just liquid, vanilla liquid, it's suddenly super sweet. And you're like, man, that is sweet.
That's actually the real taste of that ice.

Same with water.

When you chill them down, they all taste suddenly very similar. But when you don't have them chilled, they will taste differently.

Did you know of this brand before Ashton Hall blew it up? Were you drinking this before?

Way before him. But I have a video because I thought it was a hilarious video.
Yeah. It was funny.
And I did exactly the same video with me. Oh, yeah.
And I thought it was funny.

Have you running naked, shirtless, or whatever? Absolutely. I don't have any issues with that.

I'm funny of mine social. I don't have any issues to get naked.
I'm not on OnlyFans, don't worry, guys. Don't worry about that.
I'm not that crazy, but the rest for me, it's totally fine.

But I like that brand. I had this in water menus already for 10 years ago.
Nice. So Saratoga, I've been to the Spring Source as well.
I've been with a manufacturing Saratoga at Saratoga Springs.

It's pretty cool. Nice.
It's a great company, and I like this. What is really cool about them, they're very

want to make sure Mother Nature is not having a negative impact on their water outtake.

So they have water stewards on these spring sources, and they're looking to make sure that all the waters and all the wetlands surrounding the spring source are still intact. So I like this.

So they are very sustainable. And I enjoy water companies who are thinking a little bit more than just being pretty in a bottle.
Yeah, 1872. I mean, they've been through it.

They've been there and done that. Yeah.
Okay, next one. Is Gilde from Denmark.
This is a very interesting water. TDS, 320.
Wow. So we're going way higher immediately.

And a really cool thing about this water is I can do a little magic trick. I'm the Harry Potter Award waters.

And we talked already about the topic. Let's see if you can figure out what's happening.
Because you see, it's a still water.

But what is happening when I shake this bottle?

It gets super cloudy.

And this is, again, we can taste it. It's still, there's no carbonation in this water.
So what is this? So is that the salt? Uh-uh.

Because the over-mineral composition is always dissolved, so that you cannot see minerals. Okay, so is it the hydrogen?

Correct. It's oxygen, actually.
Oh, oxygen. Not hydrogen.
It's oxygen. So this water comes from a very cold spring source.
Iskilde in the Danish language means ice spring.

And when they are bottling these water under very cold temperatures, they're bottling the higher concentration of oxygen with them.

Because cold water holds more oxygen than warm water does.

That's the reason in New York sometimes in the morning in the wintertime when you're opening your tap in the hotel, it's very cloudy as well. That's trapped.
Oh, wow. Yeah, bubbles.

This one I could taste a big difference. Yeah, definitely.

It has way more mouthfeel. It's a little bit stronger on the taste.
It has a slightly earthy, salty aftertaste, I think. What I really enjoy about is Skilde.

That's my water for Pinot Noirs, by the way. I love Pinot Noir wines, and that water is insane.
Really? Like, it matches so well Pinot Noirs.

I'm always saying, I can make your wine taste better as a water sommerguy. That's a cool thing.

Versus Saratoga, I think, would be a great water for like light dishes, sushi salads, acidic salads, because it's very smooth on the palate and will balance out the acidic notes of salads.

That makes sense. So, you sometimes a pairing is actually you want to do the opposite.

Okay, let's see. Next one.
We're doing three base. That's a very unique water.
Three base from Australia. And the TDS, 1300.
Holy crap.

And as a still water, that's almost unheard of to have so much minerals dissolved. So let's taste this first.
And then I will tell you why it has so much minerals dissolved.

Wow, that's the highest I've heard. Yeah, 1300 is crazy.
As a still water, now I made a little cuvet here. Wait a minute, I didn't finish my skilde.

I made a little mixing.

The covet was not bad, but I want the real thing here. Whoa.
It's got a unique taste for sure. Yes, and it has a different mouthfeel as well.
The texture is way heavier. Yeah, it's heavy for sure.

It feels almost like when you think about low-fat milk versus whole milk. Low-fat milk is like the Iskilde and Saratoga, versus whole milk is the three-base.
It has a different texture.

Yeah, it's way thicker, right?

Thick is the perfect word. I've been on Netflix currently on the show Down to Earth with Sack Afrin.
And on the the second episode in the season one, there's Anna Kendrick, Sack Afrin, and myself.

We're doing a water tasting. And Anna is saying, this water is thick.
And she freaked out. She could, like, not believe what's going on in her mouth.

Because first, she thought, like, okay, a water sommerie, come on, huh? That crazy guy. He has to be the most pretentious person on this planet.
And I totally get it.

When you never saw me, you never heard about the concept of water sommerger, and you hear there's a guy out of Germany who lives now in Los Angeles and it's a water sommerger, I would call BS as well.

But when you meet me, I think you will realize, okay, that guy is not pretending at all. He makes even fun of myself.

I know I look like Harry Potter. It's fine.
Like, I have the same size.

I'm a very small guy, 5'6.

You're slightly taller than me, my friend.

No, but 3-base is pretty cool. Because it takes the water 2,000 years to pass through all the different stone layers.
What? That is the crazy part about 3-base.

And that's the reason this water is so high in minerality. Because it takes 2,000 years.

It's super smooth and creamy. I love this water.
This water is a great match for like

pizzas, cheese dishes, pasta dishes, I think, because they're a little bit heavier and stronger on the paste panel. I love that water for it.
It can hold up to stronger dishes.

I'd imagine that one costs the most then out of these. They're actually almost all the same price.
Really? They're all between $3 and $4. Oh, wow.
Yeah.

I'm always like, good water does not need to be expensive. Very important to me.

I hate when people push in like super expensive waters. And now for sure, somebody will call me out because they maybe saw me once.
I did a water tasting once with Diplo and two chains.

And I think Diplo is following you actually. I see.
Yeah, Diplo follows me. Great guy.
Love him. Amazing music, what he does.
Very creative. And he's actually a very humble and nice guy.

Because I met him, I talked to him a little bit. It was 10 years ago already when I did the water tasting with him for GQ.
How expensive is that shit? Yeah, yeah. And we opened a bottle for $100,000

a bottle of water. What? Why was it so expensive? Because there were diamonds and white gold on the bottle.
The water itself was very good water for $2.

Inside.

Beverly Hills 90 H2O. Yeah, it was a $2 water, what you could buy in a PET as well, but they have this super luxury edition.
And a lot of water companies drink this.

Evian, for example, is a great example. They're coming out every year with their special edition, what is way more expensive than their regular Evion.
The water is exactly the same.

Just as a collectible issue. Yeah, it's a collectible issue.
And that was the same with Beverly Hills 90H2O. Just 10 of these bottles were made.

The diamonds were like, I think 40 carats of diamonds on that bottle. Like, it was insane.
But we used that water kind of like as a clickbait because I did a water tasting with it. Smart.

And then we called it the $100,000 water, but we actually tasted all different waters as well.

That was the idea for me why I'm doing this sometimes. And we all know how social media is.
You need a little clickbait sometimes for people actually paying attention to get your message through.

So that was the idea behind the $100,000 bottle of water. That makes sense.
Yeah.

Wow. Yeah, that was a very unique water, though.
Pre-bays. I want to watch it.
Great, great water. Now, awesome water.
And I can organize this for you.

When you need this in Vegas, for sure, I can somehow organize this. Olaf is a close friend of mine who owns this water brand.

Family-owned, very small company.

His wife and he pretty much run the company. Wow.
They're pumping out very small amounts of waters. around the planet these years.

So it's like that's the reason sometimes water can be a little bit more pricey than your regular Arrowhead, for example, or Poland Spring.

What I consider actually both great waters for a great price point.

Um, but obviously, three bays, when it costs you three or four dollars, yeah, sure, why they need to be expensive?

It's a glass, it's a very small company, and we all know when you mass produce a product, it gets cheaper.

Yeah, but these small companies they're not mass-producing anything, they're mom and pop, sure, they're mom-and-pop shops.

And I have no clue how many bottles they're pumping out, maybe 50,000 per year. That's nothing, that's nothing, or maybe 100,000, it's still nothing.
Yeah, huh?

Water companies pumping out sometimes a million bottles per day,

The big boys. No wonder they have different price points.

So don't freak out when a water costs a little bit more. Okay, we're doing a little sparkling test now.
I brought three different sparklings. Let's start with Geraldsteiner.

And we're going higher in TDS, 2,500 TDS.

Geraldsteiner has a very cool story. So it's a natural carbonated water.
They don't artificially add any carbonation to it. This comes out of the spring source like that.
What?

That happens when you have old volcanic reactions into the grounds. So CO2 is nestled into the grounds as well.
Rainwater comes down as regular normal water.

Now the pH actually gets interesting because every sparkling water is lone pH, it's an acidic water. It's totally fine to consume this, guys.
Don't worry about it.

We're doing this since 200 years in Germany. Nobody got killed by drinking bottled water.
Don't worry about it. You can drown in water, but you cannot kill yourself by drinking bottled water.

Besides, you're drinking way too much water in a very short time of period. It happened here in America as well.
It's called water poisoning. I saw that.

But that's not a fun thing and that's very unusual to actually have that.

You have to like pretty much don't drink and eat anything the whole day and then dumping you like 12 bottles of Geraldstein into your body and then you might be have a huge problem.

So it's not that normal to kill yourself on water poisoning. Let's say it like that.
No, but Geraldsteiner, number one consumed sparkling water out of Germany.

And now the pH is low and this happens already in the grounds and that's the reason reason it has more dissolving power than acidic water, and therefore the TDS is super high.

So that's the benefit of an acidic water, that it leaks out even more minerals.

Again, the carbonation is pretty intense, I think.

It's not a medium carbonation water, because Saratoga, for example, in Mountain Valley are like considered medium carbonate waters when they're using artificially bubbles in it.

This one is natural, but still has more carbonation behind it. But it's not too aggressive.
I like Errol Steiner. Yeah, I've had this one.
They sell this one at Whole Foods, I believe.

Correct. And the price point is actually not that crazy expensive.
It's totally fine to have this

in a glass bottle. I like this.
And 2,500 TVs is pretty high. This has the same amount of calcium than a glass of milk.
Wow. That's crazy.
For people who are lactose intolerant, here we go.

Geralt Steiner. Wow.
That's your lactose-intolerant grade water when you want more calcium. That's impressive.
Would never think about this. Yeah, I would have never thought about it.

And that's the crazy thing a little bit here in America when I came from Europe.

they are buying their purified waters and then they're going to GNC and buying their supplements you think why are you not just drinking real spring waters where the supplements are already dissolved by nature what for sure is healthier than the supplements because they have to make them stable somehow in little pills I don't want to know what they're adding into it to make it magnetism like a pill

but here it's dissolved already or calcium is already dissolved in Gerald Steiner that's it's called bioavailable So it's already there from nature and it's way healthier, obviously, for your body.

Because it's not created in a lab. Yeah, I would have never thought in America to get my minerals from water, honestly.
They don't really teach that way of thinking here, you know.

You're absolutely right. And that's a big difference because I had a question yesterday.
I did a virtual water tasting yesterday morning with the East Coast for 60 people.

And one of the questions was, Martin, why is it that when you're going to Europe, especially Germany, and when you're asking for a bottle of water, they will give you a sparkling water, versus here in America, they give you a still water.

So, what is the addiction with Germans and sparkling? And that comes due to the minerals.

So, back in the days, and I have the proof here, back in the days, for two or three hundred years ago, we had baths in spa towns.

We still have them actually in Germany and all over Europe, where people are going to treat themselves on the healing powers of the waters.

We have over 60 water brands out of Germany who are falling under the medication law.

It's nothing else than bottled water, untreated, bottled water from nature, but they have a medication number on it.

They even sometimes say do not drink when you're under 12 years, because that's actually medication, state-approved medication.

And we're not talking about some crazy holistic TikTok doctors who thinking they can make a little money on the side. We're talking about state-approved bottled water as medicine.

So in Europe, the idea about drinking water was always not just for hydration. We knew the benefits of minerals from the spartans.

But I already told you, in a regular base, the very high mineral content waters are always sparkling due to the fact that the carbonation, because the water becomes acidic in the grounds, will leach out more minerals.

That's the reason the TDS is higher, by Mother Nature. Because back in the days, they could not create that.
So 200 years ago, we didn't have a lab to create this.

So the origin of bottled water actually started as medicine. And this is here the proof.
So this is a 160-year-old water bottle out of Germany. Wow.
And this is what water used to look like.

It's a clay bottle. And they pretty much recycled these already.
Not in the way of recycling what we're doing these days.

But they used this bottle, they shipped it over when the people were too sick to go to the spa towns as medicine.

They were drinking this as medicine, and then they destroyed the spots and built the streets foundations with us.

So we're digging up all the time now old wine or water bottles when we are digging up our streets. The interesting part is, for sure, you know the concept of Selters water or Celters.
Seltzer. Selzer.

Yeah.

It's actually a German brand name. Look at this bottle.
It's called Zelters. Wow.
This is the brand name, and it's still in existence actually out of Germany from Nieder Selters.

So, what you guys calling it Seltzer water is actually a brand name out of Germany from a Spartan

with a high mineral content water. Wow.
That's pretty cool. They used to cork.
They used to cork it, yeah. This is fascinating.
Yeah. I love looking at historic stuff.

So that is our original traditional water bottle of Germany. Okay, next one in our little tasting, let's do Vichy Carlan out of Spain.
TDS, 3052.

So we're getting higher and higher. Is that natural or artificial? All natural.
Really? All natural. All waters what I brought are all natural.
Wow. I do not drink any purified waters.

That's for me,

why?

It doesn't interest me. Yeah.
It just doesn't interest me. Wow.
3,500. This is the most I've ever drank.
Tons of sodium. Over a thousand milligrams of sodium is dissolved in this water.

So it's very high in sodium.

and you will taste this immediately who needs electrolytes it has the double of the electrolyte denigerate that's crazy that's a sports drink now we're talking about sports drinks yeah that's nuts cheers cheers

yeah immediately as soon as it hit my tongue yeah holy crap it's super salty yeah very salty but it's fun but this to barbecue Awesome. Think about it.

Your burgers, your steaks, super high in sodium as well, and they're very strong in the umami flavors, in this very like meaty flavors. And then you have the fattiness of the burgers.

The carbonation will clean down a little bit the fattiness out of your palate. And this water can actually hold up to your barbecue.

And it's very healthy because these very high-mineral content waters back in the days used to be in the spartons, especially for your digesting system.

So this is actually great stuff when you're eating a very rich diet. Yeah.
Let's say it like that. This is healthy stuff.
Wow. Martin, that was really fun, really interesting.

You've definitely shifted my perspective on water. One more.
Oh, we got one more. One more, Bonjour me.
Is this five?

Yeah, 5,000 TDS. What?

Don't think.

I'm not here to kill around, huh? Oh, my God. I'm German.
We're not playing. I could barely handle that last one.

5,000. 5,000.
This is like, this is intense. And this is a water.

This is not for daily hydration now, guys.

Like, this is something

I would do. It's kind of like a fine whiskey with me.
Or like when I have a very bad hangover, especially here in Vegas, that can happen and all this.

Drink this before you're going to bed. Next morning, you're ready, and you're the first one who wants a Bloody Mary.
Really? It works. It's the anti-hangover water.
It's a big hangover. It's great.

It tastes like and it smells like an alka-seltzer.

I was going to say, it does have a smell to it. Yeah.
It has this slightly

irony smell as well to it.

Wow.

I can't believe that's water. Crazy, huh? Yeah.
Very metallic.

There's a lot of magnesium in there as well. But I think 2,000 milligrams of sodium.
It's intense. Wow.

But great. Like, this is for me.
And again, like, water doesn't need to be always just for hydration. Yeah.
It can be more than just hydration.

And that is for me the fun part as a water source marrier. I don't want to be pretentious and to create water menus in Michelnosta restaurants, but I do.

And Gwen restaurant, for example, Los Angeles currently from Curtis Stone has a beautiful water menu created for me. And they're very successful.

It's so successful that people are stealing the water menu all the time. So it's kind of funny and hilarious that they're doing this.

But the brands what I have here, you can all find them at the water menu at Gwen as well.

But the idea is, I want to bring attention to water because millions of people don't have access to clean, safe drinking water. That's my second passion as a water sommelier.

I was just in France for UNESCO to talk about the importance of water on this planet. So I want to bring awareness and value back to water.
And I'm doing this through your palette.

Thanks for doing that, man. That was such a fun episode.
Cheers.

I won't forget. We're drawing a lot of money.
I leave them all here for you. So you can take them all, huh?

Check them out, guys. I hope you bring some water menus to Vegas if you haven't already.

Yeah, we should. It's kind of crazy in Vegas.

You need to drink water on a daily basis, and there's not even one water menu yet in place. So I'm happy to help the big hotels or maybe the small mom and pub shops.

My favorite restaurant is actually Lotus of Sierra. So good.
So good. That's for me, like, because they have their wine menu and like German off-dry Rieslings with their spicy food is just like,

yeah, we are over 18 18 here. It's just an orgasm in my head.
Let's be honest. It's just like unbelievable good.

And I love the spirit of them that they're saying, no, we don't want to be in a big hotel. We don't want to sell out to a big chain.

We are mom and pop shop. We have, I think, one or two restaurants right now.

I've been to two. I've been to both.
The original one. Way better.
What? I think so, too. And the sham is just way better.

I love this idea of the fucked up ceilings and everything about that in their restaurant. I love that.
And the newer one, yeah, sure. It's a little bit more fancier.

the food is still great, but the wine minion, the other one is just better. 100%.
Shout out to Lois John. Well, thanks for coming on, man.
Always here for you. Check him out, guys.
Cheers. Peace.

Water is not just water.

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