In sober spring, what better than ‘Wisewell on the rocks’

Alamy/Juergen Hasenkopf

As Dry January morphs into Sober Spring (apart from a wild weekend in London last month to celebrate my sister’s birthday), my mind turns inevitably towards … water.

When you have forsaken the demon drink, the question naturally arises of what you replace it with. Zero-alcohol beers and wines have their place, as do fancy mocktails and healthy juices. But with all of these ersatz concoctions you reach the capacity threshold.

One of the great conundrums of drinking life is that the human body can quite easily accommodate, say, pints of Guinness, but positively rebels at the prospect of a second virgin mojito, or another bottle of Asahi Zero.

So, the fall-back for us sanctimonious early year non drinkers tends to be a glass of water, judiciously sipped while we watch the rest of the company descend into alcohol-fuelled idiocy. It makes for an interesting night out.

This question – the role of good old-fashioned H2O in our social life – was at the back of my mind when I recently met up with Sami Khoreibi.

I first met Khoreibi, a Palestinian born in Saudi Arabia who grew up and was educated in Canada, a decade ago when he had just launched Environmena, an early mover in the UAE’s solar industry, backed by Masdar, the Abu Dhabi sustainability leader.

He cashed in on Environmena in 2017, and launched Incubayt, an investment vehicle with an emphasis on early-stage startups in the climate technology and sustainability sectors.

One of Incubayt’s portfolio companies – and the current focus of his attention – is Wisewell, which promises to revolutionise how we view that glass of colourless liquid hiding embarrassed among the pints.

“What Dyson did with the hoover, we want to do with the water cooler,” says Khoreibi. He offers me a glass of clear, refreshing liquid from a branded glass bottle that would not look out of place on a Michelin-starred restaurant’s drinks trolley.

Note, glass. Khoreibi and I share a deep loathing of the modern trend towards the ubiquitous plastic water bottle, and happily swap stories of all the ills that it dumps on mankind.

Around 400 billion plastic bottles are used each year in the world, and the Arabian Gulf is among the worst offenders. Saudi Arabia, with by far the biggest population in the region, sends 5 billion plastic bottles per year into landfill. Most will never biodegrade.

When it comes to the micro and nanoplastics associated with these containers, the horror stories become truly alarming.

I share a deep loathing of the plastic water bottle, and all the ills that it dumps on mankind

Studies show that plastic is not just an environmental threat, but may also be a significant risk to health. All those microscopic particles leach from the plastic and lodge eventually in the human brain, where they have been associated with diseases such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and fertility problems.

The particles effect levels of dopamine, meaning that bottled water literally makes you depressed. They’ve also been linked to increased antibiotic resistance. It occurred to me that perhaps those pints of Guinness were the healthier alternative.

But that’s a bigger decision, and for now I was quite happy to hear Khoreibi’s take on plastic in water.

“Not many years from now, I can see that drinking from a plastic bottle will be like lighting a cigarette in public”, he says.

Instead of the plastic bottle, Khoreibi – along with his partner Sebastien Wakim – is offering the Wisewell water purification system that claims to turn tap water into high quality mineralised fine drinking water.

He talks knowledgeably about reverse osmosis and spectrometers, but the proof of the pudding was in the glass in front of me.

It had been dispensed from a sleek machine – a bit like a high-end Italian coffee maker – which is piped directly into the water supply and which removes impurities and adds healthy minerals.

There are plans for a sparkling water product later this year, with quality and taste overseen by Wisewell’s very own water sommelier.

Of course, water impurity, and plastic pollution, is a bigger problem in poorer countries, and Wisewell is piloting its purification schemes in Ethiopia, with other African countries to come.

I quite fancy having one of Khoreibi’s coolers installed at home, to see me through to April at least. “Wisewell, on the rocks” sounds pretty cool.

Frank Kane is Editor-at-Large of AGBI and an award-winning business journalist. He acts as a consultant to the Ministry of Energy of Saudi Arabia