WELCOME A WATER BAR

It used to infuriate me that people in the office somehow needed to bring a bottle of water to a 30 minute meeting. Is there danger of them dehydrating in that time? Are they about to cross the Sahara Desert over lunchtime and need to take on liquid beforehand or is just a fad that seems to be sweeping the world? Well, those folk can now go shopping and get their urgent water supply from the in-store water bar!

Selfridges is opening the first water-only cocktail venue in the UK. Thanks to our American cousins across the 'pond', the store hopes to import a craze for so-called designer waters, that has swept through the States. Some top restaurants and water bars there offer H2O menus, with some brands such as Fillico Jewelry Water (below) costing as much as £130 a bottle.

Reports in the press say that Selfridges will consult a 'water sommelier' who can tell what region a water comes from by the taste, to create a menu for the bar. Martin Riese, a former restaurant manager form Germany, who is regarded as a pioneer in designer water, told the Sunday Times that water has a taste so why not create a water menu? ''Just buy different brands of water with different mineral levels and taste them side by side and you will suddenly see how different they are? They can be salty, sweet, smooth, fruity, complex, metallic.'' He added, ''Like wine, one can actually taste the region and depth from which the water comes.'' 

I can only agree with Herr Riese. I'm a sparkling water drinker and I can distinguish the different taste when we change our weekly supplier of water, dependent upon where we shop. As for the Selfridges Water Bar I might pop into their Birmingham branch before they call 'last orders'.