Josh King, a former Clinton White House aide, worked in communications at The Hartford before leaving us for NYC. In all his spare time doing global communications, he’s launched a new sparkling water, Dr. Priestley’s Fizzy Water, that premiered on Amazon a few days ago. Dr. Priestley’s, partially inspired by King’s visit many years ago to Curt Cameron’s Thomas Hooker Brewery in Bloomfield, is initially available in four flavors: Cucumber Mint, Meyer Lemon Ginger, Rosemary Grapefruit, and Original Virgin. As he tells it, King loved seltzer, as well as historical ties to products that we love and we consume by the case, like Cameron’s Hooker or Jim Koch’s Samuel Adams. Joseph Priestley, King’s muse, was a philosopher, inventor, and unheralded Founding Father who befriended Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, and Thomas Jefferson and discovered, somewhat accidentally, carbonated water in 1767. The backstory and drama behind Priestley’s “happiest invention” is chronicled in Steven Johnson’s The Invention of Air: A Story of Science, Faith, Revolution, and the Birth of America, which gave King the “a ha” moment to follow in the footsteps of Cameron, Koch, Hooker and Adams. Having sampled it ourselves, it’s fantastic. Drink up!
