Plain Seltzer water on Queen Victoria

[aaaaa]

Good day.  Is plain seltzer water available on the ship?  Not Perrier, Pellegrino -- just plain-old carbonated water or club soda.  If so, is it available via a soda machine, at bars, etc.?  Also, have you seen brown rice on a buffet or a restaurant menu?  Thanks!

[Winifred 22]

6 hours ago, aaaaa said:

Good day.  Is plain seltzer water available on the ship?  Not Perrier, Pellegrino -- just plain-old carbonated water or club soda.  If so, is it available via a soda machine, at bars, etc.?  Also, have you seen brown rice on a buffet or a restaurant menu?  Thanks!

I have not seen any brown rice. 

[Victoria2]

46 minutes ago, Winifred 22 said:

I have not seen any brown rice. 

I haven’t either but I will ask.

Not asked for a Club Soda but it must be onboard. Again, I will make sure. There is Harrogate Water by the bottle, still or sparkling.

[exlondoner]

30 minutes ago, Victoria2 said:

I haven’t either but I will ask.

Not asked for a Club Soda but it must be onboard. Again, I will make sure. There is Harrogate Water by the bottle, still or sparkling.

I think the mineral water varies. We have had three different types supplied to our cabin in a voyage of less than a fortnight. And mineral water seems one of the things they do take on board at ports other than Southampton. Is seltzer water mineral water?

[Jonem2001]

1 hour ago, Victoria2 said:

I haven’t either but I will ask.

Not asked for a Club Soda but it must be onboard. Again, I will make sure. There is Harrogate Water by the bottle, still or sparkling.

One of today’s lunch dishes in Princess Grill is ‘Brown Rice and Veggie Balls’, if that saves you a trip and/or a question - the first time I’ve seen it on a menu, I think. At least it suggests they keep brown rice to hand, if nothing else.

[Victoria2]

 

13 minutes ago, Jonem2001 said:

One of today’s lunch dishes in Princess Grill is ‘Brown Rice and Veggie Balls’, if that saves you a trip and/or a question - the first time I’ve seen it on a menu, I think. At least it suggests they keep brown rice to hand, if nothing else.

Saves me an ask. Not looked at today’s menu and I see it’s on QG too. I had assumed it’s available as a request but wasn’t sure about it being a menu feature. I’ll look at Britannia lunch menu when I finish throwing things in the cases.

 

If you see me upstairs ( blue melange sloppy sweater and black cut offs) today, do say hello. 🙂

 

[aaaaa]

4 hours ago, exlondoner said:

I think the mineral water varies. We have had three different types supplied to our cabin in a voyage of less than a fortnight. And mineral water seems one of the things they do take on board at ports other than Southampton. Is seltzer water mineral water?

"Mineral water" (still or sparkling) has a noticeable amount of minerals (e.g., potassium) in it -- the mineral count varies by brand/source; seltzer or "soda water" is just regular water with carbonation added.  For some persons, the minerals cause gastrointestinal distress.

[Pushpit]

3 hours ago, exlondoner said:

I think the mineral water varies. We have had three different types supplied to our cabin in a voyage of less than a fortnight. And mineral water seems one of the things they do take on board at ports other than Southampton. Is seltzer water mineral water?

On the sparkling water side (that's my main drink) the options are

- San. Pellegrino (750ml bottles)

- Perrier (usually 300ml)

- Harrogate or Hildon - QM2 seems to have more Hildon, QV and QE more Harrogate. 500ml and 1 litre.

And the latter is relatively good value if buying large bottles, one litre, $4.49 including service.

 

Seltzer means different things in different countries. Germany uses the term for mineral water (which the EU strictly defines but can be still or sparking) which is either naturally or artificially carbonated with CO₂, occasionally Na+ (sodium bicarbonate), whereas in the USA it generally covers sparking water as a whole and is generally tap water, or re-filtered tap water, carbonated with CO₂. In the UK, seltzers often relate to the once popular flavoured carbonated drinks promoted by the Temperance movement, some products live on (Vimto, IrnBru).

 

USA hasn't got a big culture of sparking waters (but it used to) whereas Germany is at the other extreme where they take it very seriously, and the UK, France, Spain, Portugal are in the middle.

 

There is also "gun" or "well" sparking water - often called soda water - is available at the Cunard Bars and that's included in the cheaper Soft Drink packages sold by Cunard. This is filtered tap water plus CO₂ with the gas added just before serving. The Premium Soft Drink packages gives access to the brand sparkling waters mentioned above, but only in the small bottles and they aren't always findable. Plus a nuisance at meal times if the sommelier has to keep trekking back for several small bottles of Perrier and Harrogate/Hildon. Sometimes other sparkling waters are in the Premium package, if the bar happens to have them, most common is Schweppes Club Soda, which Na+, not CO₂.

 

There is cream soda, which isn't in this discussion really since it was originally soda water plus a tiny amount of vanilla, so a flavoured drink, Nowadays it's usually artificial vanilla, which in turn requires sweeteners in it to be palatable. But in its native form it would be almost calorie free.

 

The filtered water machines on Cunard vessels, such as in the Lido and Kings Court, don't have a sparking water option, though they are getting fairly popular these days so maybe that will change at some point.

[exlondoner]

My goodness, if water is this complicated, I can understand why wine needs so many experts.

[exlondoner]

15 minutes ago, aaaaa said:

"Mineral water" (still or sparkling) has a noticeable amount of minerals (e.g., potassium) in it -- the mineral count varies by brand/source; seltzer or "soda water" is just regular water with carbonation added.  For some persons, the minerals cause gastrointestinal distress.

But mineral water is just regular water, with naturally occurring minerals, which vary according to where it comes from. I don’t think they are added. Malvern water is what comes out of the spring in Malvern, for example. Isn’t that correct?

[Pushpit]

17 minutes ago, exlondoner said:

But mineral water is just regular water, with naturally occurring minerals, which vary according to where it comes from. I don’t think they are added. Malvern water is what comes out of the spring in Malvern, for example. Isn’t that correct?

So you may think this is my special subject! Yes, is the short answer.

 

The EU - and UK by historical means - have 3 types of marketing category and the rules on them are strict - you can't pass off water in the wrong category without potentially ending up in court, and this happens sometimes. Only still and sparkling water are covered by this, flavoured drinks have another set of legislation around them. 

- "Natural Mineral Water", the highest quality category. This has to conform to a lot of rules, including a precise address of the spring. You can see this if buying say supermarket branded water, they slide in a postcode somewhere obscure on the label, to give the location, which supermarkets won't do for orange juice or sausages. It has to label the water's composition.

- "Spring Water", this has to come from a spring but not to the same high specification as the Natural Mineral Water. The labelling requirements are much lower.

- "Bottled drinking water", this is the lowest of the three, and has to meet good standards of water purity, and is perfectly safe and drinkable, but it can be tap water. Notably when Coca Cola launched Dasani in the UK, they had to file paperwork for this and so it was discovered that it was actually came from Thames Water's Beckton waterworks, alongside The Thames. Dasani is a huge brand in the USA. Tap water in other words. Doubtless it was very good water but eau de Beckton may not be what people think if paying extra for Dasani in their snazzy bottles.

 

Malvern was a  Natural Mineral Water, high quality, but it got closed on economic grounds. A smaller start up company continues operations, on a much smaller scale and has maintained the spring that has been used for over 400 years. This is "Spring Water" quality.

 

Potassium - K - is naturally in water, including tap water, fruit, fish, vegetables. It's essential for human life, essential for plasma, and a shortage of it can cause hypertension and potentially death. The average human has between 100 to 200 grams of potassium in their body all the time. The bigger problem than potassium in water is that most people don't get enough potassium in their diet. Hence there is not an upper limit in the specification for potassium in water (though K has a strong flavour so too much would at some point be noticeable), whereas Natural Mineral Water must not - by law - have more than 50mg per litre of Nitrate (NO₃).

[exlondoner]

Thank you. Actually, I do like the taste of Thames.

 

It all shows there is no necessary distinction between the mineral content of mineral water and so called ‘regular’ water. They both vary.

[NE John]

1 hour ago, exlondoner said:

My goodness, if water is this complicated, I can understand why wine needs so many experts.

I have seen high priced “craft” seltzer water here, to go with craft beers. They’ll soon offer water tastings along with wine tastings onboard soon!

Edited August 5, 2023 by NE John

[exlondoner]

Just now, NE John said:

I have seen high priced “craft” seltzer water here, to go with craft beers. We’ll have water tastings onboard soon!

Well, when you think the ship takes on water at every port, you would obviously be exposed to a variety of mineral content. However, everything is overwhelmed by the high level of chlorination.

[aaaaa]

Thanks for the information!  For those (few) who might want to explore the water-related matter yet further, see this site: https://finewaters.com/bottled-waters-of-the-world

 

[Victoria2]

14 hours ago, aaaaa said:

Good day.  Is plain seltzer water available on the ship?  Not Perrier, Pellegrino -- just plain-old carbonated water or club soda.  If so, is it available via a soda machine, at bars, etc.?  Also, have you seen brown rice on a buffet or a restaurant menu?  Thanks!

Plain answer without any science 

Soda water 

Fevertree

Three Cents

Soda fountain

 

Brown rice

yes but not sure how often it’s on the menu but if in QG,  you can ask for it and if it’s a dietary requirement in any restaurant, inform the Head Waiter.

[Host Hattie]

I've moved the water discussion to a new thread. 

[exlondoner]

If you want water, there’s plenty outside at present. Very fresh.

[Pushpit]

5 hours ago, NE John said:

I have seen high priced “craft” seltzer water here, to go with craft beers. They’ll soon offer water tastings along with wine tastings onboard soon!

There's also Hard Seltzer, which is the fastest growing area of the alcohol industry. This is usually sparkling water, plus say a citrus flavour and then low alcohol fermented sugar or barley. Sometimes the alcohol is the fermented natural sugar of the fruit.  Somewhat misleading term though. I haven't seen any on board yet, but it's high margin (95% water.....) so I guess it will at some point become available. Around 5% alcohol, so about as strong as lager.