Hearne: Lawrence Library Tries to Turn Water into Wine

When’s the last time anybody wasted a half dozen half page newspaper ads to draw fewer than 20 folks to a “free” wine tasting?

In the case of the Lawrence Public Library and Lawrence Memorial Hospital the answer would be yesterday. Then again, it wasn’t quite a wine tasting.

The name of the event: 

Water As Wine. Creating The Drink & Pleasing The Palate

Yep, two of the Lawrence’s biggest organizations teamed up to hold a tap water tasting Tuesday in the Crystal Room at the historic Eldridge Hotel in downtown Lawrence.

That’s right, a tap water tasting.

The esteemed ballroom was decked out from stem to stern with table after white linen covered table with attractively arranged wine glasses for the blessed event. Unfortunately, panelists and servers aside, less than 20 attendees – yours truly included – showed up.

Water, water everywhere but nary many locals to drink!

The evening kicked off with a “taste and odor” demonstration by a local chef.

“We will start just by looking at the water,” he began. “And I know this sounds super pretentious, but we’re going to look at this as if we were tasting wine.”

At which point five or so tap waters were individually poured by a handsomely attired wait staff and then blind taste tested by the unwashed, employing a 1 to 10 grading system that ranged from “cloudy, river water” at one to perfectly clear @ 10.

“Can you smell it?” the chef queried. “If it’s neither pleasant or unpleasant, it would be a five. Okay, now we’re finally allowed to taste the wine – I mean, water.”

Not being able to smell, I was somewhat handicapped, but I gotta tell you, for the “judges” and participants, it was a dead serious occasion…in other words, you had to be there!

As luck would have it, the Lawrence tap water along with the library and hospital’s bottled waters won the day.

“Smooth,” was my take, with a grade of 7.

Manhattan, weighed in at 4.5, with lowly Leavenworth bringing up the tail end at with a hard, chlorine like flavor that rated but a 2 (and that was generous).

So what, you ask, was the purpose of the exercise?

Apparently it was to note that people need to drink more water and preferably the free water that the library and hospital allow people to download into containers.

The between the lines on whole affair: Next time you find yourself dining out in Leavenworth, stick with the hard stuff!