And now, a few minutes with Ben Krimmel.
Sparkling or still?
That was always one of the first questions you were greeted with by a waiter at the table, at least that was back when we still went to restaurants with waiters and white tablecloths. The kind of question serves as both the first opportunity for dinners to begin firing away orders and allows the waiter the chance to instantly determine what kind of customer they would be dealing with for the next 90 or so minutes.
A question which carries a consequence for an incorrect response: An intense, but a millisecond of a silently judgmental gaze heaped upon whoever at the table does the unfortunate task of sheepishly mumbling a humble “Tap is fine, thanks.”
For many of us, that used to be the extent of our exposure to the world of sparkling water. Politely declining the opportunity to pay a little extra for the privilege of drinking a slightly flavored and carbonated liquid instead of simply enjoying the classic vintage.
But nowadays it is impossible to avoid the bubbles.
Those bubbles being sparkling water or any of its other half-dozen aliases: soda water, fizzy water, bubble water, club soda, seltzer water, or, the obvious, water with gas. That last one sounds like some sort of joke a bad sitcom dad would make about what happens in a hot tub. (Coming Sunday nights this fall on CBS after Chiefs - Raiders, I'm sure.)
Gone is the day of just bumping into a Pellegrino or a Perrier in the foreign world of the fizzy water and forgetting it. Gone is the day of the blue bottle with a siphon. Gone is the day when seltzer was strictly the domain of Chuckles the Clown, a vaudevillian instrument for cheap laughs.
Now we are guzzling it down by the barrel. And can't walk down a grocery aisle without tripping over a case of bubbly, Spindrift, and the king of the trend, La Croix. All of them capitalizing on young Americans falling out of love with sugary drinks which dominated the past century. (Their alcoholic cousins bundled onto the scene next, washing over America with a torrent of intoxicants and carbon dioxide: truly and White Claw became the go-to drink of summer parties in the USA.)
What has Joseph Priestley wrought! The poor man in Leeds, working a decade before America declared independence, starting “Impregnating Water with Fixed Air.” He birthed a behemoth, a world that became too good for regular old water.
“We’re living in the age of seltzer,” somebody remarked to me the other day at a cocktail party. I vowed to never speak to that person again.
Fortunately for those who don’t mind failing to excite a suitably snobbish waiter and suffering through the slightly poorer service that results in daring to request the meal’s thirst quencher and pallet cleanser be gratis, the reign of Priestley’s bastard great-grandchildren won’t last forever.
Bubbles, you see, are designed to burst.
Ben Krimmel is a writer from Baltimore who lives in New York.
This piece is the second in the ‘Three minutes or so’ series. (Which is, of course, an homage.)
Read last week's piece: How long is a year supposed to feel?