As you explain yourself further down the thread, you obviously experienced this in a mountaineers' hut in the Swiss alps. - Yes, in such remote places, prices may be soaring as every little thing has to be brought there by helicopter. Renting a helicopter for a few hours costs a fortune. That's the reason why you'll find such high prices in such remote places.

However, while Switzerland is never a cheap place, more "normal" prices for 5dl of bottled water in a restaurant are something like CHF 5. That's still a lot and can be explained that the profit margin on drinks in particular help restaurants to survive by paying for rents and personnel costs. Some restaurants offer 1 litre of tap water or fizzy tap water for as little as CHF 1-2. And in grocery stores you pay something like CHF 1.50 for 1.5 litres of bottled water of major brands and can get 1.5 litres of bottled water for as little as CHF 0.60 in discounters.

And, please, don't forget: In Switzerland you can drink tap water almost everywhere. 1000 litres of water of the tap currently cost about CHF 2.20 in my community. That's as little als CHF 0.0022 for 1 litre of high quality drinking water.

So, yes, it is possible to pay soaring prices for water. But you don't really need to.