It was discovered in 2003, but God only knows how old Iskilde is. Some geologists believe it dates back to the Ice Age. One thing we do know, it is sensational!
Iskilde means “cold spring” in Danish and, yes, the water is truly cold as it comes out of the ground. But what stuns your palate on your very first taste is its wonderful silky texture and its subtle sweet taste - similar to a glacial water - only with much more body.
These rare qualities are due to the fact that Iskilde is filtered through billions of mineral particles before it is harvested. As it sieves through these layers of mineral matter it is exposed to a huge surface compared to waters that simply penetrate rock through a crevasse. In the process, Iskilde is exposed to many different types of rock, instead of just one variety. During this process the water absorbs a wide range of minerals, many of them rare in nature. It is these many different tastes, balancing each other out, that gives Iskilde its rare sweetness. This is also the reason why the water has more body than glacial waters, which it resembles at first impression.
Another distinguishing characteristic of Iskilde is its extreme purity, with not a trace of human activity to be found. This was no easy feat to achieve according to Jan Bender, the man behind the miracle of Iskilde. “My goal was to transport the experience of drinking Iskilde right at the source, to wherever one decides to open a bottle,” explained Mr. Bender. “We had to simulate the influence air has on the Iskilde's soft and silky texture as it comes from the ground. The only gas we could find that didn’t change the taste, while still restoring the life and silkiness of the water at the spring, was pure oxygen.” All this had to be done without introducing a single germ to a single bottle of Iskilde, according to Bender. “Even a single germ, is one too many.” says Bender. As a result of the high level of oxygen, very often when a bottle is opened, the water will even take on a milky appearance, which is millions of tiny bubbles of oxygen, which will then float to the surface. The result is a pure silky texture which mimics the experience as if taken directly from the source.
The creation of Iskilde's packaging was made the responsibility of renowned Danish designer, Jesper Mathiesen. The design goal was a bottle as elegant as it is functional. “It was very important to maintain focus on the contents, the water, rather than the packaging,” explains Bender.