Glenmorangie is my preferred beverage (I like my bottled water to have a wee little color and flavor), although I can see that people with a weaker palate might prefer Evian.
Awesome. An excuse to tell my water anecdote...
I used to hang out with this girl who was absolutely militant about drinking only bottled water. We discussed it many times and she continually insisted it tasted better. I argued that she could not possibly taste a difference and that it was all in her mind.
Well, one day she comes over to my apartment and goes to the fridge to pour herself a glass of water from the jug inside. She takes a few gulps and says, "Hey, this is really good water. What brand is it?"
"Tap," I replied.
Evian is the absolute worst bottled water around. It has a nasty after-taste. I never pick up the re-bottled tap water brands, but even they taste better than Evian.
Dasani is good water, but it seems to fluctuate in quality. I've had some that was the best I'd ever tasted, and some that was just so-so.
At my office, we just got a water cooler from a company called "Fresh Squeezed Water". The first bottle was a bad bottle. Or, as it was referred to, "Skunky". It had a real aftertaste. We switched it out, and finally got some good tasting water. Very refreshing stuff.
BTW, Perrier - from the french word for "Specimin"!
Water filters are actually still expensive to run, we've found, but they have the major advantange of meaning you never need to de-scale your kettle if you're in a hard water area.
Rain: You should come to London (hard water) or Manchester (soft) and try the tap water. The aftertaste of these is abominable - I much prefer the bottled variety.
For the record Paul, I prefer Highland Spring.
Bottled water is simply someone elses tap water. The tap water around here is just fine, thank you. Does anyone remember when you could go into most any business and get a drink of water for free? Not since they found they could make big $$$ selling it. So what does it cost to fill those little bottles anyway? $.0000001?
I suppose if I must drink bottle water I'd have a Coors or a Bud.