For years now, I’ve been offering my opinions about favorite libations, which has turned into a substantial catalog of cocktails, wines, and beers from various bartenders, vintners, and brewers, respectively. If the list is remarkable for anything it’s probably in the exclusion of other liquids. Sure, I’ve written about water tastings in the past, but more as an update in the latest restaurant trends as opposed to any acknowledgment of the water itself.

Let’s remedy that. First, however, let’s acknowledge that bottled water brings with it a distinct and disturbing problem: plastic. If you’re not interested, as an Earthling, in the health of the planet, you still should have an interest as an Angeleno, in that nearly three-quarters of beach litter worldwide is plastic, according to Global Citizen.

Furthermore, consider that every minute, one million plastic bottles are purchased across the world and, citing Global Citizen again, plastic production has doubled over the last 50 years despite our understanding of its harmful effects. It seems to me that if you’re going to drink bottled water, a minimum ideal should be that it be made from BPA-free plastic.

So, with that sunny outlook as a backdrop, let’s talk about H2O. The most crucial substance on the planet happens to come in a variety of levels of purity. It’s that purity that water-bottling companies try to sell as a means of distinguishing their product from the next. The greater the purity, the better the water. Thus, the source of that water is a prominent feature in the marketing campaign. As it should be.

That said, some companies are a little bit disingenuous when they label their bottles with pictures of snow-covered peaks when their water is actually sourced from a metropolitan reservoir (or when they are sourcing water from a dwindling aquifer that lies under Native American property, prompting droughts on their already-famished lands).

The last Ice Age ended about 10,000 years ago. There weren’t a lot of pollutants around in those days. But pure glacial water sources are extremely rare. However, there exists an ancient ice field in the Coast Mountains of British Columbia, in a place called Toba Inlet, about 200 kilometers (whatever that means) northwest of Vancouver. This Canadian Government-protected glacial field is where Ice Age Glacial sources its water.

In terms of purity, Ice Age is nitrate-free, sodium-free, and chlorine-free. It has the least amount of dissolved solids (4 parts per million) of any bottled water available. The little mineral content it has is that of the rare variety found only in glaciers. After extraction, it’s bottled at a zero-waste facility under the guidelines of both Health Canada and the FDA.

It’s currently sold in health-food stores and some select grocery stores across North America, as well as on Amazon. It comes in two varieties: ultra-pure still water and 9.5 pH, a high-alkaline version infused with minerals and electrolytes designed to enhance hydration and replenishment. Oh, and it tastes really good.