First it was gourmet coffee. Then it was gourmet tea. Now its...gourmet water? Well, Japanese visitors swear by the stuff. And for sheer gimmick value, its hard to beat. The water comes from the Kona Coast of the Big Island, where a deep ocean pipe that was originally part of an energy experiment, pulls up water from 3,000 feet just offshore (yep, the drops are pretty crazy off Hawaiian Islands).

MaHaLo Hawaiian Deep Sea Drinking Water has "has all the natural building blocks of life gleaned from ancient glaciers and the mineral-rich channels of the sea. Koyo USA has created new technology to gently filter out the excess sea salt, while maintaining the essential minerals to produce this pure and exhilarating drinking water." Hmmm. I've tasted it and its quite refreshing, a cool glass of you know what. But what I *really* like about MaHaLo is its Waikiki water bar, pictured here. It's an extremely trippy shop with bubbling water columns and offerings of bottled water, coffee and tea made from this water. They claim its the purest water around. It's certainly one of the most expensive, with a case of 30 500 ml bottles running a whopping $60. Then again, so is the endemic Hawaii Mai Tai.

—Alex, 12/02/06