Fred

Fred is a great name. Some of, well, at least one of, my best friends are named Fred. Great actors like Fred Astaire and Fred MacMurray and Fred “The Hammer” Williamson are named Fred. Perfectly solid name.

What’s my point? I was in a hotel room earlier this week and I open the mini-bar, not for a brewski, but for a cool drink of water, and what do I see? This:

Actually, that’s what I saw after I opened the bottle and took a swig, but you get my point. It’s bottled water called “Fred.” Why? I haven’t the foggiest idea. Here’s what the marketing nonsense says:

Fred comes from Alpine Springs, which is a mountain spring located in Livingston Manor, New York.
Super low in TDS and a superior rating for nitrates gives Fred his smooth, epicurean characteristic. Also unique to Fred is his charismatic personality and refusal to be defined simply by his chemistry or the geological strata.
Fred is different. He’s dimensional. He’s engaging and clever. Fred loves meeting people and hanging out and has an ergonomic shape that makes him easy to hold and convenient to carry. Some call Fred “the total package”. Fred, however, prefers “friend”.
Nicely positioned as an engaging and accessible premium water brand, Fred even has his own MySpace page and blog with fan videos.

Seriously. How stupid is this shit?

Even more interesting than the idiotic name of this bottled water is the fact that the small bottles are shaped like pints of booze. Now, Lord knows, I’m no stranger to swigging out of a pint bottle, but who needs their water in such a bottle? If anything it’s a ridiculous tease, plus the bottle is plastic not glass, which destroys the whole effect (with due respect to Tullamore Dew, which for some reason comes in plastic pints, at least in Ireland).