The office water cooler is a bastion of the American workplace — and a prime market for bottled water companies.

Office water cooler sales are far less cut throat than single bottle sales and have proven a good sector for Cherokee Bottled Water. Two full-time workers are devoted to the water cooler route, supplying 550 offices from Murphy to Hendersonville. Unlike single serve bottles that can be shipped vast distances, the water cooler sector is localized, and few other distributors operate in the region.

“We’ve carved a fairly good size niche for ourselves,” Greg Duff, director of Cherokee Bottled Water, said of the office coolers.

Another niche for Cherokee Bottled Water is the growing popularity of personalized water bottle labels. Companies, non-profits or individuals can simply email Cherokee Bottled Water a logo and receive cases of water wrapped in the specialty label. The idea first caught on in the 1990s among upscale restaurant owners who couldn’t justify charging customers $3 for a bottle of water commonly found on convenience store shelves.

Customized labels have taken off in the past five years. Businesses of all kinds are ditching the traditional promotional freebies — such as pens, drink coozies and notepads sporting the company logo — and latching onto the idea of customized water bottle labels. Cherokee Bottled Water makes labels for the Old Edwards Inn and Spa in Highlands, Flying Dog Café in Asheville, Mountain Lake Properties in Glenville, a Ford car dealership, even a high school football team in Oklahoma.

“It’s not something I go out and push,” Duff said of the specialty labels. “In most cases, they come to us through the Web site. Cherokee’s prices for customized water bottle logos beats their competitors.”

The Maggie Valley Chamber of Commerce was a frontrunner in custom water bottle labels and was Cherokee Bottled Water’s first specialty label customer five years ago. The water is a promotional tool given away at travel and convention trade shows, but is sold to tourists for $1 a bottle at the Maggie visitor center, at events and festivals. The beauty of it is people pay to be advertised to — the Maggie chamber makes upward of about 50 cents a bottle.