Thanks to the freedom fries fiasco, the recent anti-French foolishness became rather futile. Even a satirical suggestion to change the Nicollet, Hennepin, Lac Qui Parle and Fond du Lac names on the state map went nowhere.

Along with wine on the alleged boycott list, there could have been several famous brands of water.

For several days I looked for a bottle of Perrier in the area stores. My quest was futile. However, I did find another brand of genuine French water, and still another brand of imported liquid which could really fool the anti-French folks.

Evian is water originating in a place called Cachat Spring somewhere in the French Alps. This imported liquid is just mountain water with a fancy price.

Then there’s Aberfoyle, a Nestle product clearly labeled as &uot;Eau De Source Naturelle Canadienne.&uot; That may be French, but it’s really French-Canadian, and a phrase easily translated into English. Aberfoyle water comes from a spring in Wellington County and is bottled in Guelph, Ontario.

Another Nestle brand of bottled water is sold with the brand name of Ice Mountain. I really doubt if there’s a place named Ice Mountain in Pennsylvania, Michigan or Maryland. Yet, the labels on the bottles containing the water with the cool name list quite a few springs as the point of origin for this liquid.

One spring is located in or near Rodney, Mich. Then there are the Frontier Springs in Tripoli, Bangor and Stroudsburg, Pa. Still another set of springs are located in Hegins, South Coventry, Pine Grove, and the Hoffman Spring in or near New Tripoli, Pa., and a spring at Oakland, Md.

I have a hunch Nestle has a fleet of tanker trucks collecting water directly from all these springs, then going to several centralized bottling plants.

As I carefully checked the labels of the bottled waters in area stores, I developed a list of terms used to describe the origins of the liquid contents. They include spring, purified, microfiltered, distilled, fluoride added, enhanced, reverse osmosis, carbonated, flavored, steam distilled and artesian. There are likely some other ways to describe how plain water is prepared for sale to the public I may have missed.

One of the best known of the bottled water brands also has its place of origin right on the label. It’s Poland Spring, located in the town of the same name out in Maine.

What’s certainly one of the most honest labels for water in this region says it’s &uot;bottled at the source.&uot; That product is Chippewa Spring Water from Chippewa Falls, Wis. Incidentally, there’s also a famous brewery in this city. One could wonder if the liquid for the beer and the drinking water come from the same spring.

Then there’s a brand of bottled water with the very Germanic name of Klarbrunn from, very appropriately, Watertown, Wis.

A brand with a strong Minnesota connection is Kandiyohi bottled water. One could assume this liquid comes from the area of Willmar in Kandiyohi County. Instead, Kandiyohi and another brand, Mendota Spring, originate in the Twin Cities.

One of the gimmicks used to promote sales of bottled water is to use an exotic brand name. I’ve already mentioned Ice Mountain. Another chilly gem is Glacier. Still another is Arctic Mist from Natick, Mass., and not from northern Canada, Alaska, Greenland or even Siberia. A really oddball brand I haven’t seen for some time supposedly comes from Tahiti.

One brand of water has as its source Quincy, Ill. Now here’s a situation where fairly cheap city water could be treated, enhanced, bottled and sold at a fancy price. To discover the source of Quincy’s water, I called their chamber of commerce. The lady who answered said their city water comes from the Mississippi River, but the bottled water comes from a spring out in the county.

To close off, here’s my candidate for the best brand name and bottling gimmick for boutique drinking water: It’s Deja Blue.

Feature writer Ed Shannon’s column appears Fridays in the Tribune.