- What is Kool Aid? Best known in the USA, it's a soft drink which comes in packets of powder which are mixed with Water to make a pitcherful. The drink is usually either served with ice or refrigerated and served chilled.
- It was invented by Edwin Perkins, mail order merchant who had previously invented a salve for sunburn and sold that along with various food, medicines and cleaning products. He added a fruity soft drink to his repertoire in the early 1920s.
- When it first hit the market, Perkins's drink came in liquid form, packaged in four-ounce bottles. However, selling things in bottles by mail order wasn't ideal. Customers loved it, but the postage was expensive and the product didn't always reach the customer in one piece! Perkins looked at ways to solve these problems, and in due course found a way to convert the syrup into powder.
- It wasn't called Kool Aid at first, either. Perkins initially called it "Fruit Smack". Only after he started marketing it as a powder did he change the name to "Kool Ade". It's not certain why the spelling was changed to "Kool Aid" in 1934, but it may have been because the “-ade” suffix was only allowed for fruit juice, and it had to be changed to avoid a lawsuit.
- The original six flavours were Cherry, Grape, Lemon-Lime, Orange, Raspberry and Strawberry. Since then it has been made available in dozens of flavours including tropical punch, watermelon, mango, tangerine and Apple.
- The brand survived the challenges of both the great depression and the second world war. During the depression, Perkins slashed the price of Kool Aid by half and marketed it as a budget luxury. During the war, supplies were shipped to US troops abroad.
- In 1998, Kool-Aid became the official state soft drink of Nebraska. In Hastings, Nebraska, there is an annual Kool-Aid festival with beauty pageants, car shows, demonstrations on using Kool-Aid in the kitchen and a “Kwickest Kool-Aid Drinking Contest.”
- There are other things you can do with it besides drink it. You can dye your Hair with it; you can use it to detect leaks in the cistern of a Toilet (empty a sachet of powder into the cistern and leave overnight. If the water in the bowl changes colour before the toilet is flushed, you know there is a leak.) and the lemonade flavour apparently makes a good dishwasher cleaner.
- The product's mascot is the Kool-Aid Man, an anthropomorphic pitcher filled with Kool-Aid. In the TV ads, Kool Aid man bursts into the homes of thirsty children and makes them drinks. His catchphrase is "Oh, yeah!" He has also starred in his own video game and been turned into a superhero by Marvel comics Marvel Comics’ The Adventures of Kool-Aid Man ran for three issues in 1983. In both, Kool Aid man's arch enemies were "The Thirsties".
- In 1978 Kool Aid reached the public eye for the wrong reasons when it was allegedly the drink Jim Jones made his followers drink at Jonestown, laced with cyanide, Valium, Phenergan, and chloral hydrate. "Drinking the Kool-Aid" has become an expression for blindly following the dogma of a religion or cult. However, it may not have been Kool Aid they drank at all, but Flavor Aid, a rival product. At least, that's what Kraft Foods, who own the Kool Aid brand said at the time. Film from Jonestown before the massacre showed boxes of both brands among the cult's supplies, so who knows?
My latest books
Closing the Circle
A stable wormhole has been established between Earth and Infinitus. Power Blaster and his friends can finally go home.
Desi Troyes is still at large on Earth - Power Blaster has vowed to bring him to justice. His wedding to Shanna is under threat as the Desperadoes launch an attempt to rescue their leader.
Someone from Power Blaster's past plays an unexpected and significant role in capturing Troyes.
The return home brings its own challenges. Not everyone can return to the life they left behind, and for some, there is unfinished business to be dealt with before they can start anew.
Ben Cole in particular cannot resume his old life as a surgeon because technology no longer works around him. He plans a new life in Classica, away from technology. Shanna hears there could be a way to reverse his condition and sets out to find it, putting herself in great danger. She doesn't know she is about to uncover the secret of Power Blaster's mysterious past.
Available from:
Amazon (Paperback)
A stable wormhole has been established between Earth and Infinitus. Power Blaster and his friends can finally go home.
Desi Troyes is still at large on Earth - Power Blaster has vowed to bring him to justice. His wedding to Shanna is under threat as the Desperadoes launch an attempt to rescue their leader.
Someone from Power Blaster's past plays an unexpected and significant role in capturing Troyes.
The return home brings its own challenges. Not everyone can return to the life they left behind, and for some, there is unfinished business to be dealt with before they can start anew.
Ben Cole in particular cannot resume his old life as a surgeon because technology no longer works around him. He plans a new life in Classica, away from technology. Shanna hears there could be a way to reverse his condition and sets out to find it, putting herself in great danger. She doesn't know she is about to uncover the secret of Power Blaster's mysterious past.
Available from:
Amazon (Paperback)
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