Antipodes Still Water

As of this very moment, at 11:59 on August 2nd, 2011, Eastern Standard Time, New York Magazine tells me in a year-old article that I am just now reading that the hipster subculture has died out. In the last few weeks, I have seen no androgynous boys rock the Spirit Hood, nor Kurt Hummel look-a-likes in keffiyahs, and for that, I am grateful. But while the human world is starting to recede from the bespectacled dead end of modern-day society and reembrace the gentle lull of tiny hats for full-sized heads and the ever-sexy Bermuda madras shorts, the fancy food world has taken a direct leap into the belly of obscurity, where the need for artisanal waters is fierce and the casual dropping of the word "kefir" is abundant and chilling to the bone.
To commemorate the passage of this bottom-feeding beast, I decided to uncap a bottle of one of my most prized samples, not an All Girl Summer Fun Band autographed 40 of PBR, but a bottle of Antipodes, artisanal still water from New Zealand. The website informs us that it's sourced 327 meters below the surface in an undisclosed, James Bond-esque location in New Zealand. You probably haven't heard of it. Before this harvesting, we are informed that it has spent "decades under enormous pressure in vast underground caverns" before being brought to us. At this point, I'm not impressed. I can name no less than six Asians off the top of my head that have spent two decades of their life in the same way, and they're doctors and lawyers now! And its cover letter reads like a valedictorian speech. It practically quotes Nelson Mandela.

I can post this if it's not pornographic or obscene. You be the judge!

I videotaped this because with all of these pressured terms being thrown around, I expected a little more boom for all of my effort. Alas, nary a hiss, and I'm now wondering if this water bottle just mentioned the decades of pressure to get a break from the 'fam with the help of DCF. Haters. The water is in a comically large bottle, large enough, I assume, to accommodate the translation of War and Peace on its side. It is rather unwieldy and in the process of videotaping its underwhelming hiss of air, I spilled what I'm going to guesstimate as being about $50 worth of water on the cat tower. I'll never recover financially.
This is like $800 bucks right here.
I tested the water in true American fashion, a blind taste testing, hoping to imitate a cheaper version of the famed 1976 Judgment of Paris. It was up against the very tap water that courses through Massachusetts, and to really see how fine-tuned my taste buds were, the last bit of Smirnoff vodka that we had. Never say that I don't enjoy my work. To my chagrin, it was incredibly easy to pick out the Antipodes from the tap water and vodka, and when compared, there really was a significant taste difference. The tap water had a faintly chlorinated flavor and weak, flat mouthfeel. The Antipodes was very clean-tasting in comparison and had a rounded, distinct texture. The vodka was sdfklj iojtooajajoggfgfgfkfdjfklhhh..................I had to have another three to make sure I was getting the correct sample.
I was impressed with Antipodes as it really did have a distinct flavor that made it taste more refined from regular tap water, but something about the product just seems pretentious. I would buy this again, but can't help to think that I'd be lumping myself in with skinny marathon runners and stuffy Fox Fires fans who lug these bottles to their races and concerts and pull them out at the very end to pose for cameras and jealous friends. "Oh, hey, Poland Spring? That's great stuff, I'm really into Antipodes right now. Yeah, I get it imported. It's just worth it, you know?" So for the aesthetics and marathon runners, I think I'll pass on this a second time. But if I ever get a hankering for it again, it's a mere 9,258 miles and 327 meters below the sea.