Cloud Juice. Just the name gives you an idea of what’s inside the clear glass bottle with the distinctive silver cap. But this is more than just water from the clouds. It’s undiluted purity.
On the southern tip of a small island between Australia and Tasmania sits 1300 square feet of polycarbonate roofing. This is the main production floor for King Island Cloud Juice, one of the purest, rarest, most unique, and best tasting bottled waters in the world. You see, at this precise spot is collected some of the finest rain water on the planet.
We wondered what happened to make King Island the perfect location for the collection of this perfect water. Weather scientists tell us that prevailing western winds meet up with cold and clean Antarctic air to create moisture that falls to King Island as rain – all a matter of oceanographic chance and good fortune. Duncan McFie, Cloud Juice’s founder, is a little more skeptical. “It’s as if angels conspired to give our little island just the right weather for this pristine rain water,” he quips. “We’ve got the clean cold Antarctic air, the warm humid western winds, and this island plopped at exactly the right spot. Maybe they were looking for a place that would give them water fit enough to drink themselves.”
Maybe, indeed. All we really know is that the air around King Island and Tasmania is the benchmark for air quality on Earth – no air system is cleaner. This is why Cloud Juice is up to 400 times purer than World Health Organization standards require for drinking water. Perhaps this is why chilled it tastes slightly sweet but served at room temperature has an almost velvety texture. Perhaps this is why Cloud Juice is served at El Bulli – voted 2005 and 2006 World’s Best Restaurant, where reservations are required a year in advance and dinner can cost more than your mortgage.
King Island Cloud Juice is sought the world over by connoisseurs and devotees of fine luxury waters. Since it is only collected from rain, production is very limited, highly seasonal, and therefore unapologetically expensive.
