After so many years of neglect, water appears ready to emerge as a cutting-edge health food. Perhaps it’s the fault of Gatorade, that Technicolor concoction of salt, sugar, and water people guzzle to “replenish their electrolytes.†The Gatorade inventors, some dweeby physiologists, were just trying to keep football players from collapsing in the Florida heat. They could not have foreseen what was to transpire in the decades ahead as the concept of the “sports drink†took hold, and then, more bizarrely yet, water itself became a symbol of health and status. With each iteration, beginning with bottled waters derived from...