Essential Beverage for the Holiday Season: Water

Water? What kind of a beverage is that? An essential beverage, in fact, and even more important during the festive holiday season. While certainly not a substitute for cocktails and tipples, water is a must-have addition to any party menu. Water is refreshing, hydrating, and a good foil to over-indulgence. A lack of water can cause dehydration, which in turn impacts blood circulation. This can cause fatigue and reduced brain activity. Water also cleanses and removes toxins from our body, hydrating our skin and, better yet, is recommended for aiding weight loss.  Don't these benefits sound appropriate during a season associated with parties, drinking and excess?

Planning on throwing a dinner or cocktail party for the holidays?  Make a point of offering water along with cocktails. Today, bottled waters, sparkling or still, are all the rage. Bottles of all sizes, shapes and design quality offer water with a travel pedigree that makes our passports pale in comparison. Still water from the French Alps, sparkling water from Norway, fizzy water from Italy. The choices are endless, and the bottles are tempting in their variety of presentation - if not for the water itself, than for re-use as table ornaments. 

But in this age of frugality and environmental awareness, these choices and designs impact our wallets and our global footprint.  So, if you would like to offer a posh sparkling water at your holiday party, what should you do? Try using a water filter for your tap water and pour the still water into carafes. Even better, invest in a water carbonator, and add your own fizz to your purified water.  A water filter can cost as little as 35.00 and prices for a carbonator start at about 59.00. This will be a cost at the outset, but with a bottle of San Pelligrino running about 2.00 a bottle, this cost will be rapidly recovered during an active party season. Stylish, green, hydrated, moisturized, purified and ever-so posh - what better recipe for a Diva?