Food

MAKING WATER MORE BEAUTIFUL TO DRINK

How can you make water more beautiful? Most doctors agree that one of the keys to staying healthy is staying hydrated, especially as we shuffle into these sluggish summer months. They recommend drinking two liters of water a day which can become quite a chore, so here are some new ideas to make it a delight.

Floral and herbal ice cubes are simply exquisite as they float in your glass and perfume your drink. Juliet Blankespoor, of Castanea, created the beauties featured in the photo above. We love the Calendula and Wild Bergamot flowers in the Schisandra-infused ice cubes. They look like frozen fireworks—stopped and stuck mid-burst.

Juliet is the director and primary instructor at the Chestnut School of Herbal Medicine and has been sharing her passion for botany and herbal medicine for almost two decades. “I use herbal infused ice cubes to flavor plain water when I have a full day to make a quick cool herbal beverage, or use them to flavor and cool herbal teas,” she explains on her website.

Infused water

Photo: Jerry Errico for “Cool Waters”

Brian Preston-Campbell, an edgy food stylist/chef, crafted enough infused water recipes to keep you magnificently quenched all summer long. His book can be a bit hard to find, but it’s worth the effort. Look for “Cool Waters: 50 Refreshing, Healthy, Homemade Thirst Quenchers” (Harvard Common Press, 2012). In the prologue, Campbell considers his book to be “A collection of unique cocktail recipes.” But they are all triple virgins—no alcohol, sugar, or chemicals. Campbell’s concoctions range from the exotic Thai Red Plum Fizz to the post-gym Cucumberade, to the romantic, Honeydew-Mint Mist—perfect for a quiet garden and a Sunday afternoon.

Infused water Photo: Courtesy of Define Bottle

Now that we have plenty of inspiration and recipes to juice our new infused water habit, we love the Define Bottle so we can drink it wherever we go. The sleek, modern vessel is designed with a re-freezable base piece to help keep your fruit cool while it infuses your water.

The bottle was the brainchild of 13 year-old, Carter Kostler. Kostler and his family often drank the infused waters that his mother frequently made. But if he needed a drink on the go, his only option was unflavored water, juice or soda bottles or cans. So he invented a sustainable bottle that could make your infused waters portable. The Define Bottle ignited a passion in Carter and he joined the fight against childhood obesity and type 2 diabetes. The Define Bottle debuted at the 2013 Clinton Foundation Health Matters Conference. Carter’s ultimate goal is to get an entire generation of children off of soda, one school district at a time. A portion of proceeds from the sustainable bottles are donated to The Alliance for a Healthier Generation’s Childhood Obesity Initiative.