Water is important. Obviously. It is quite literally the source of life, and for runners, staying hydrated is one of those things that can make the difference between a good run and a miserable one.
We are also pretty lucky here in the Pacific Northwest. Our tap water generally tastes pretty darn good. (Have you ever had tap water in California? Whoof.) But taste is only one part of the equation, and when it comes to portable water, not every option is created equally.
I have a small collection of plastic water bottles in the garage for emergencies, but I don’t exactly love the idea of relying on them for everyday hydration. There’s the environmental side of single-use plastic, along with the growing conversation around microplastics in bottled water. One recent study found nearly 250,000 plastic particles in a liter of bottled water.
Loonen is definitely taking a different approach to bottled water. It’s also considerably more expensive than the stuff you can grab at the grocery store, which makes it a little difficult to give it the traditional “you should absolutely buy this” review. At around $6 a bottle, this isn’t going to become my everyday running hydration source. But I do think it’s an interesting product worth talking about.
Where the Water Comes From
Loonen sources its water from Palomar Mountain Spring in California, an area that may be more familiar to cyclists because of the famous Palomar Mountain climb.
The company says it uses multiple springs rather than relying on a single source, which helps avoid putting too much demand on one spring. And because springs are living systems that can change with the seasons, Loonen tests the water at the source. If a spring no longer meets its standards, the company says it moves on to another source.
That last part is actually where the name Loonen comes from. Like a loon, the company moves when it needs to.
I also learned something while researching this that I hadn’t really considered before: a significant amount of bottled water starts as municipal water. In other words, some of the water you’re buying in a bottle began its life as essentially the same kind of water coming out of your tap, before being processed, packaged, and sold at a mark up.
Loonen is taking a different approach by starting with spring water and then putting considerably more attention into what happens to it afterward.
A Lot of Filtration
The company uses stainless steel and physical membrane filtration, following what it describes as the highest-quality filtration approach recommended by the World Health Organization. The goal isn’t simply to strip everything out of the water, though. After filtration, Loonen rebalances the water back toward the original mineral profile of its spring source.
That includes minerals such as calcium, potassium and magnesium, along with French sea salt.
The end result is a water that is, at least to my palate, exactly what you want water to be: crisp, clean and easy to drink. There’s no weird flavor or aftertaste, although admittedly I’m not sure I’ve ever had a glass of water and thought, “Boy, that was a complicated flavor profile”, unless I happen to be in Southern California…
Testing What You Don’t Want
Loonen also goes beyond the basic water-quality testing you’d expect.
According to the company, each batch is independently tested by accredited laboratories for microplastics, PFAS (“forever chemicals”) and hundreds of other trace contaminants. Thhose results are made available through its website and via a QR code on each bottle. The water is also third-party certified by NSF.
That’s a pretty extensive process for something whose primary job is still just to get water into your body. But I suppose that’s kind of the point.
And Then There’s the Bottle
The final part of the Loonen equation is how the water gets to you.
It’s bottled in glass rather than plastic. There aren’t plastic-lined aluminum cans or plastic-lined cardboard containers either. Even the cap is aluminum and unpainted and uncoated, which helps avoid the potential microplastic shedding associated with decorative finishes.
The caps are also rinsed twice and sanitized in a closed system before the bottles are sealed. Again: that’s a lot of work for a bottle of water. And honestly, I think that’s what makes Loonen interesting.
Is It Worth $6?
That’s a good question – and likely dependent on your situation.
Loonen has both still and sparkling water, and I enjoyed both. I have NEVER found a sparkling water I actually enjoyed – until now. It’s hard to describe the taste of any water, but Loonen water definitely tasted about as fresh as any water I’ve ever had.
There’s also something appealing about knowing considerably more about where your water came from, how it was filtered, what it was tested for and what it was packaged in.
But $6 per bottle is a lot of money for water.
I can’t sit here and tell the average runner that they should replace their tap water or reusable bottle with Loonen. For most of us, filling a reusable bottle at home is going to be the practical answer, and here in Oregon, we’re fortunate to have pretty good water coming out of the tap in the first place. What I can say is that Loonen represents an interesting look at what bottled water could be.
It’s less about simply selling another bottle of hydration and more about being extremely intentional about the entire process, from the source to filtration to testing to packaging. And while some of the claims and processes are certainly things I’d like to see more widely adopted across the bottled-water industry, there’s something to be said for a company putting this much effort into something as basic as drinking water.
Is it necessary? Probably not for most people. Is it interesting? Absolutely.
And if you’re someone who is already willing to spend a premium on bottled water and cares about the sourcing, testing and packaging that goes into it, Loonen is a pretty compelling option. For the rest, we may still feel OK filling reusable bottles from the tap. But I’ll admit – the taste here is fantastic and I’ll be paying a little more attention to where that water comes from.