Bespoke, artisanal water could, conceivably, be a thing. Artisanal ice is real, after all.
The artisanal water we discovered recently is, however, just a vivid figment of filmmaker Paul Riccio's imagination.
"I had just rolled my eyes one too many times watching something about the artisanal food movement, so I decided to make my version of This Is Spinal Tap except instead of heavy metal it was hipsters," he writes in an email.
Riccio tells The Salt he was inspired by director Christopher Guest, who also made Waiting for Guffman and Best In Show, and the IFC program Portlandia, to capture the earnest spiels so often spouted by Brooklyn food makers.
The film features the Timmy Brothers, who peddle bespoke drinking water, like Batch #1402, which contains Mississippi River water, Lake Pontchartrain water and a dash of East River water.
When Bill Timmy (played by Mike Mergo) tells us that, "every drop of water has a story to it, it really does," it's tempting to believe him. And it's a reminder of just how easily we justify spending more on a food product if its tale is crafted just right (and we have the dough to spare).
Riccio says viewers have appreciated the film's satirical edge, but they also "see it as a comment on the use of authenticity as a sales gimmick and the silliness of increasingly precious forms of consumption."
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