Chicago—famous for its architecture, hot dogs, pizza—and now—water?  Today, the Windy City unveiled a new “product,” Chicagwa, an H20 brand promising to bring thirst-quenching freshness, straight from Lake Michigan, to its denizens and visitors.

The potable, which comes in cans featuring vibrant artwork from local artists, is actually a new campaign to promote Chicago, commissioned by the office of Mayor Lori Lightfoot and created out of local agency Quality Meats. It was unveiled this morning during an event with Lightfoot in front of Chicago’s Water Tower. 

According to Gordy Sang, co-founder and co-chief creative officer of Quality Meats, the idea comes out of an initiative started by Lightfoot and Chicago CMO Michael Fassnacht, “By Chicago, For Chicago,” which called on the city’s agencies to donate 1% of their time to help with its marketing. “As an agency startup with deep Chicago roots, we reached out to be a part of that,” he said. “And since we’re smaller, we said we could probably commit 22% of our time.”

With “Chicagwa,” Lightfoot, Fassnacht and team “mentioned they wanted to do something that shined a light on how we have this endless source of clean drinking water since we're so nuzzled up with Lake Michigan,” Sang explained. “We developed the idea to can the water and brand it more in the lines of a craft beer, and they instantly loved it.”

While the city has multiple other marketing initiatives, “this was something that stood out to us, just because how vital water is to our city, and our city's history,” Sang said. “The ultimate goal of the campaign is to educate and build awareness around that, to build a sense of pride around what the city has to offer and give people more reasons to love Chicago and potentially want to move here.”

The water, which was canned by local Chicago brewer Great Central Brewing Company, will be available for a limited time at eateries including Wieners Circle, Manny's Deli and Kuma's Corner. The city will also be distributing at various events, which Sang hopes will include the Chicago Marathon and Lollapalooza.

The effort also includes signs reading “proudly serving Chicagwa on tap” for local restaurants to display, as well as stickers for locals to put on their water bottles. Ideally, it will go even beyond that and “we can brand the city's water fountains, or turn the Water Tower into a tap room, or be the water sponsor at the marathon,” Sang added.

Sang added that the hope is that “Chicagwa” can become “shorthand” for all of the city’s tap water. As for how his agency landed on that name, it “kind of rolled off the tongue and was by far the stickiest,” he said. Also, it works on multiple levels. For one, it sounds like the Spanish word for water, “agua.” Moreover, it’s a nod to the original name of the city, which stems from the Native American word “Chicagoua,” which translate to “stinky onion.” But that “isn’t what the water tastes like,” Sang insisted.