Why Do Some Bottled Water Brands Achieve Viral Stardom?

In early 2025, the bottled water brand Saratoga went viral. Long before the advent of social media, 125 years ago, the sparkling mineral water brand Apollinaris was one of the first bottled waters to achieve viral stardom. Both were associated with health fads. 

Bottled water has long been linked to wellness and fitness. Perrier’s bottle was designed to resemble the Indian clubs used in 1800s-era rhythmic gymnastics. Before then, water from natural mineral springs was known to be safer to drink than polluted river water available in populated areas. Bottled water from specific springs was thought better to treat various conditions (iron-rich water for anemia, for example), with the healthiest sources believed to be the naturally carbonated ones. 

The invention of artificial carbonation at the end of the 1700s allowed producers to make fizzy versions of their still waters. Brands would promote the functional qualities of their products. Schweppes once advertised a cooling fizzy water for “persons exhausted by much speaking, heated by dancing, or when quitting hot rooms or crowded assemblies.” 

These bottled waters were promoted as healthy mixers for alcohol. Apollinaris advertised the “Scotch and Polly,” a Scotch whisky highball mixed with its water. The cocktail reached viral status around 1900, when the comedic song Scotch and Polly became a hit performed in music halls. It went:  

Scotch and Polly, Scotch and Polly, jolly good stuff to drink 
The Scotch got up in my head you know
The Polly got winking at me so
I lost my way, my rings, my chain, my watch 
I either had too much of the “Polly”
Or else too much of the Scotch.

More than a century later, another brand-specific highball started to trend: The Ranch Water is a tequila and soda with lime, traditionally mixed with heavily carbonated Topo Chico water. It gained a reputation as a lower-calorie cocktail, as it contains no added sugar. That’s despite alcohol being the source of most calories in a mixed drink. 

Still waters

In the 1980s, Evian created advertisements for its water with images of people doing aerobics in Jane Fonda-style leotards. The brand partnered with celebrity fashion designers, some of whom were hired to design limited-edition bottles. The association of luxury, beauty, and fitness with certain water brands has been a theme ever since. 

A regular gossip column item from the 1980s and beyond concerned female celebrities who were said to demand Evian to wash their hair. But that’s not the only reported external use for bottled water.  

Earlier this year, fitness influencer Ashton Hall shared a video of his supposed five-plus hour morning routine that includes swimming, running, pushups, journaling, rubbing banana peels on his face, and dunking his face into multiple ice water baths. The water which Hall drinks and features in most frames of the video is Saratoga water, in its signature cobalt blue-colored bottle. 

The video garnered millions of views, caused a run on Saratoga water, and inspired a new generation of consumers to look into “functional” waters like Core Water and Essentia. 

From TikTok to impassioned Reddit threads, water drinkers debate the taste and merit of different brands. They measure water with a TDS meter, and often conclude, incorrectly, that those with higher numbers are more contaminated.

The real difference in bottled waters

Bottled water can be the product of either nature or nurture. Brands like Dasani and Aquafina can be considered the latter: municipal source water that’s purified and remineralized for flavor. (Distilled or reverse osmosis purified water without any minerals added back into it, often used in irons and other equipment, generally doesn’t taste very good.)

Other brands, like Fiji, Mountain Valley Spring, and Evian, are taken from springs, artesian aquifers, or other sources, where minerals are naturally present. They have very low levels of organic matter from sources like decaying vegetation or agricultural runoff, unlike surface water from lakes and rivers. So, most of the flavor comes from those minerals. 

Both the total quantity of minerals, and their relative makeup, determine flavor. In general, the higher the total dissolved solids (TDS), the more flavorful the water. Distilled water has zero TDS, while many popular bottled mineral waters are in the 200-300 milligrams per liter (mg/L) range. Water from icebergs have very low TDS. Iceberg brand has less than 5 mg/L, for example. Three Bays, sourced from an aquifer in Australia, has a whopping 1,300 mg/L. 

Water with even moderate sodium tastes salty, while those high in calcium can taste bitter or sour. Fiji water has a reputation for having a silky texture from higher-than-usual levels of silica. Spain’s Vichy Catalan is quite salty, while Aqua Carpatica, from the Carpathian mountains of Europe, is soft and chalky. Different waters can taste weighty or light, dry or rich, savory or sharp. 

Some water brands list the TDS and individual mineral makeup on their labels, and nearly all do on their websites. 

As for alkaline water, vitamin waters, and electrolyte waters, let’s leave the health claims to medical experts, but feel free to use them to wash your hair.