Category: water
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New Water Tasting Class Dates for Fall 2026
I added some dates for my Water Tasting classes. More info is here.
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Educational Development Around Brands – and Photos from Tales of the Cocktail 2026
I wrote a post for LinkedIn but I’ll cross-post it here as I wanted to share photos from my Tales of the Cocktail Seminar anyway: I create hands-on, interactive learning and tasting experiences around cocktails and spirits (and ice and water) for bartenders and, more recently, consumers. Through my 20+ years leading industry education sessions…
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Talking About Water Tasting on the News
I was the guest in the newsroom at KTVU, based in Oakland, CA, to talk about my Water Tasting Classes. The segment went super fast, but I overcame my cringe to watch it and I think I did pretty good! (Ignore the fact that I spilled the Gerolsteiner and couldn’t open the first Vichy Catalan…
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Temperature vs TDS of Water
In my Water Tasting Classes, we use low-end TDS (total dissolved solids) meters to check the TDS of still waters before tasting them. Not only are the TDS meters not the top of the line, another reason they don’t always match the reported TDS (bottled waters put this info on their websites – Fiji is…
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Water Brands: Enter the Water Choice Awards
This August I’ll be judging the Water Choice Awards, a new water competition hosted by The Daily Pour. If your brand hasn’t entered yet, check out the website – entries are due June 30, 2026!
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Saratoga Water’s Changing Sources
In my water tasting classes in San Francisco, I noticed that Saratoga water’s total dissolved solids jumped from around 40ppm TDS to about 100ppm. In the class we measure TDS by using a low-end TDS meter. The change came between one bottle (glass) and the next batch I bought (in plastic). I was wondering if…
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A Review of my Water Tasting Classes in The Daily Pour
Amanda Paul wrote a review of one of my Water Tasting Classes in San Francisco, for The Daily Pour. The Daily Pour will be sponsoring a water judging called the Water Choice Awards later this year. I quickly realized our host was one of those rare people who moves through the world like an almanac,…
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A Review of my Water Tasting Class in Coyote Media
Soleil Ho, the former SF Chronicle restaurant critic, attended one of my Water Tasting Classes in San Francisco and wrote up an awesome review of it for Coyote Media. The class was a particularly fun session, with two very opinionated bartenders in attendance. I don’t usually consider water in my daily life. I drink good…
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How To Highball
For Men’s Journal, I wrote about the choice of sparkling water for your whiskey highball. Read it here.
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When Fizzy Water Was Medicine
My fellow drink writer Liza Weisstuch wrote a story about seltzer and the specific affinity that the jewish people of NYC have for it. The story includes some quotes from me, as I covered the medicinal history of spas and the soda fountain in my book Doctors and Distillers. The story is very fun…