Day 94 - San Pellegrino (water)

There are many terms for this water – bubbly water, sparkling water, fizzy water, eau gazeuse, or, as we call it in our house, GREEN WATER.  Whatever you call it, you probably either really LIKE it or really DON’T LIKE IT.  There doesn’t seem to be much of an in between.

I should also say here – there is more than one bubbly water.  Probably the most famous is Perrier, but if you do a side by side comparison of Perrier and San Pellegrino, in my opinion San Pellegrino wins hands down.  It is less “baking soda” tasting, more WATER-ish, which is, after all, the taste you are going for when you pour yourself a glass of water, no??  Put that green glass bottle in the fridge, get it nice and cold, then ahhhhhhhhhhhh – have a drink.  Fantastic!

That beautiful green bottle that we love so much...

WE LIKE SAN PELLEGRINO.  We buy it a lot, and we drink it a lot.  We like it so much that we buy it by the case at BJ’s (which is a wholesale club – you may have Sam’s or Costco).  AT BJ’s, it is normally $14 for a case (12 bottle), which comes out to $1.17 per bottle.  It often goes on sale at BJ’s, and when it does we buy multiple cases.  We get through about a bottle every two days, more in the summer.  So you can see why we look for it at a cheap price.

So the issue is not whether SAN PELLEGRINO is amazing – it is.  The issue is – does Trader Joe’s sell it at a good price?  Let’s do some math:

BJ’s - $1.17 per bottle (BUT you have to buy a ridiculous membership that costs $50 per year)*

Giant – on sale at $1.67, but normally $1.79

Whole Foods – $1.69 (which they declare is a “GREAT PRICE!”)

Trader Joe’s - $1.49

Whole Foods declares this to be a GREAT PRICE!

Giant - on SALE it is a good price...

I 

I would say that if you are a CASUAL DRINKER OF SAN PELLEGRINO and not an addict (we are addicts), then Trader Joe’s is indeed your store to get it!  If you haven’t tried it before or if you are a Perrier drinker, please pick up a bottle and taste it.  It’s really good.  Let me know what you think.

*        I am not a math genius, but I THINK I just worked out that at the average rate we consume it, we save $58.56 per year by buying cases of San Pellegrino at BJ’s instead of getting it by the bottle at Trader Joe’s!!  Even if you take into account the price of the membership ($50), we are still $8.56 ahead!  J  And that is before you take into account the insanely cheap rotisserie chickens we pig out on from BJ’s (and the toilet paper and Irish Spring soap that we bought and have enough to last through a nuclear meltdown…)

Price - $1.49

Rating – 4.75