Kool-Aid

File:Kool-Aid Logo.png

Kool-Aid is an artificially-flavored soft drink concentrate which is made by Kraft Foods. Kool-Aid is sold as a powder to be mixed with water, and versions are made with sugar as well as with an artificial sweetener.

Kool-Aid was invented by Edwin Perkins in Hastings, Nebraska. Perkins was always fascinated by chemistry and enjoyed inventing things. When his family moved to southwest Nebraska at the turn of the century, young Perkins experimented with home-made concoctions in his mother's kitchen. Kool-Aids predecessor was a liquid concentrate called Fruit-Smack. Fruit-Smack, like Jell-O, came in six delicious flavors. The four-ounce bottle made enough for a family to enjoy at an affordable price. The bottles were later proved to be costly, and breakage was becoming a problem. To reduce shipping costs, in 1927, Perkins discovered a way to remove the liquid from Fruit-Smack, leaving only a powder that could be pre-packaged in envelopes 1. This powder was named Kool-Ade (and a few years later, Kool-Aid). Kool-Aid sold for ten cents a packet and was first sold to wholesale grocery, candy and other suitable markets by mail order in six flavors; strawberry, cherry, lemon-lime, grape, orange, and raspberry 1. In 1929, Kool-Aid was distributed nation-wide to grocery stores by food brokers 1. It was a family project to package and ship the popular soft drink mix around the country. During the Great Depression, Perkins cut the price in half to just five cents a packet, so that families could afford this luxury 1. By 1950, 300 production workers produced nearly a million packets of Kool-Aid each Day 1.

In 1953, Perkins sold his Kool-Aid to General Foods 1. In 1954 the popular "Smiling Face Pitcher" was introducted in print advertisements. The mascot of Kool-Aid, Kool-Aid Man (aka The Big Man), is a gigantic anthropomorphic frosty pitcher filled with Kool-Aid and marked with a fingerprinted smiley face on it, as seen in Kool-Aid's advertising. Besides the smiling face on the pitcher, it has also had the image of five cents drawn in the frost as well as another had a heart and an arrow 2. In TV and print ads, Kool-Aid Man was known for bursting suddenly through walls and adapted the catch phrase,"Oh,Yeah!!!"

Because the Perkins Products Company had its origins in Nebraska, and the company's founder kept his ties to the state, Kool-Aid was dubbed the official soft drink of Nebraska. Kool-Aid Days, a summertime festival that includes the World's Largest Kool-Aid Stand, is held annually during the second weekend of August in Hastings, Nebraska 3. This festival is three days of fun during the summer and mugs are two dollars a piece with free refills all day 3.

Contents hide 1 Other uses 2 "Drinking the Kool-Aid" 3 Kool-Aid Comics 4 Kool-Aid in Pop Culture 5 Flavors 6 External links

"Other Uses"

Kool-Aid's high concentration of food coloring and its low retail cost (US$0.20 a packet as of 2004) has led some to use Kool-Aid to dye fabric and hair 4. Kurt Cobain, of the band Nirvana had his hair dyed with red Kool-Aid before a performance on Saturday Night Live. There are several different methods that can be employed when using Kool-Aid to dye your hair 4. Some of the most commonly Kool-Aid dyed materials include yarn and bed sheets 4.

Packets of Kool-Aid mix can be used to make several food recipes also. Some of the most popular include: Kool-Aid ice cubes, popsicles, colorful Rice Krispies Squares and frosting for holidays, and snow cones 4.

In the 1960s, Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters were notorious for lacing Kool-Aid with LSD at gatherings. Publication of journalist Tom Wolfe's recollection of their mad tour, “The Electric Kool Aid Acid Test”, which captured this aspect of the decade, cannot have been greeted with pleasure at Kraft Foods 4. Kool-Aid can also be used to clean your dishwasher, remove rust stains from concrete, make colorful paints, or watercolors, and make play lip gloss 5.

"Drinking the Kool-Aid"

The idiomatic expression "drinking the kool-aid" is a reference to the 1978 cult mass-suicide in Jonestown, Guyana. The cults name was Peoples Temple and the leader was Jim Jones 6. He convinced his followers to drink a punch laced with cyaninde on November 18, 1978 7. This event is now commonly called the Jonetown Massacre. Nine hundred and thirteen of the one thousand one hundred Jonestown residence who drank the brew died 8.

There are three sayings that have become the lasting legacies of the Jonestown Massacre. One is the saying "dont trust anyone you find to be a little on the kooky side" or "whatever they tell you dont believe too strongly". citation needed The phrase can also be used in the opposite sense when stated "drinking the kool-aid." This means "blindly jumping on the bandwagon" and "being a team player" 9. The last of these sayins is "kool-aid drinker." Meaning that you are a person who is part of the problem not part of the soulution 9. This phrase is common in sports, politics, and discussions about computer technology.

Kool-Aid Comics

There were six Kool-Aid Man comics made in the 80’s. They were published by Marvel Comics and given away by the truckloads by General Foods. “The Adventures of Kool-Aid Man” ran between 1983 and 1989 10 The “stories” were used strictly for promotion. Each of them had two stories, each one involving the Kool-Aid Man and a bunch of kids fighting off yellow spiky characters called Thiristies. There were even two video games made for the Atari 2600 and the Mattel Intellivision, which were a tie-in with the comics. The Atari 2600 version, the concept is to eliminate all the Thirsties. In the Intellivision version, the goal is to make a pitcher of Kool-Aid11. These are more of the scarce games to find for those systems.

Kool-Aid in Pop Culture

Recently, Kool-Aid and the Kool-Aid Man have made a comeback in the mainstream. Spurred by the popularity of comedian Dane Cook’s the “Kool-Aid Man” sketch, which featured Cook talking about a nightmare involving the talking bowl of punch, phrases such as the pharse “Oh Yeah” and Kool-Aid references are becoming widely used again. Kool-Aid was also mentioned in a part of Dane Cook’s comedy album “Harmful if Swallowed." In the First episode of the cartoon series The Family Guy, the Kool-Aid Man made a cameo appearance. Peter gets sentenced to prison causing a series of reactions in the crowd yelling “No”, and then the Kool-Aid Man accidentally burst through the wall shouting “Oh Yeah" 12.

Sources 1. History of Kool-Aid (http://www.hastingsmuseum.org/koolaid/history.htm)

2. Official Kool-Aid website (http://www.kraftfoods.com/Koolaid/)

3. Official Kool-Aid Days website http:/www.kool-aiddays.com/

4. Kraft Foods FAQ’s section http://www.faqs.org/faqs/food/kool-aid-faq/

5. Extraordinary Uses For Ordinary Things http://www.readersdigest.ca/mag/2006/04/Ordinary_Things.php

6. http://religiousmovements.lib.virginia.edu/nrms/jonestwn.html

7. www.owlnet.rice.edu/~reli291/Jonestown/Jonestown.html

8. www.crimelibrary.com/serial4/Jonestown

9. www.mepc.org/journal_vol11/0406_lang.asp

10. http://www.x-entertainment.com/articles/0861/

11. www.classicgaming.com/2600ce/gotw/koolaidman.html

12. http://www.devilducky.com/media/33802/

[[Image:Koolaidmancart.jpg|thumb|125px|left|Kool-Aid Man video game for the Atari 2600. circa 1983 M Network.]

Flavors

There are many different flavors and types of Kool-Aid.

**Original six flavors**
Cherry	Grape	Lemon-Lime
Orange	Raspberry	Strawberry

**Past and current flavors in the US**
Apple	Arctic Green Apple	Bedrock Orange	Berry Blue	Black Cherry
Blastin' Berry Cherry	Blastin' Berry Cherry (sugar free)	Blue Moon Berry	Blue Raspberry	Bunch Berry
Candy Apple	Changin' Cherry (color-changing mix)	Cherry	Cherry (sugar-free)	Cherry Cracker
Cherry Lime	Cherry Subway	Cola	Eerie Orange (Halloween edition)	Golden Nectar
Grape	Grape (sugar free)	Grape Berry Splash	Grape Illusion (color-changing mix)	Great Bluedini
Ice Blue Island Twist	Ice Blue Raspberry Lemonade	Incrediberry	Jamaica (hibiscus flavored)	Kickin' Kiwi-Lime
Kiwi Strawberry	Lemonade	Lemonade (sugar free)	Lemonade Tea	Lemon-Grape
Lemon Ice	Lemon-Lime	Mandarina-Tangerine	Mango	Man-O-Mango-Berry
Mountain Berry Punch	Oh-Yeah Orange-Pineapple	Orange	Piña-Pineapple	Pineapple-Grapefruit
Pink Lemonade	Pink Swimmingo	Punch	Purplesaurus Rex	Rainbow Punch
Raspberry	Red Fruit	Mountain Spring	Rock-A-Dile Red	Root Beer
Scary Blackberry (Halloween edition)	Scary Black Cherry (Halloween edition)	Sharkleberry Fin	Slammin' Strawberry Kiwi	Soarin' Strawberry-Lemonade
Soarin' Strawberry-Lemonade (sugar free)	Starry Strawberry Star Fruit	Strawberry	Strawberry Falls Punch	Strawberry Split
Strawberry Tea	Sunshine Punch	Surfin' Berry Punch	Swirlin' Strawberry Starfruit	Switchin' Secret
Tamarindo	Tangerine	Tropical Punch	Tropical Punch (sugar free)	Watermelon Kiwi
Wildberry Tea	Yabba Dabba Doo Berry

Note: that some flavors appear under different names.

**Other flavors worldwide**
Cola	Frutas (fruit punch)	Frutas Vermilhas	Grape Blackberry	Grosella (gooseberry/currant)
Guarana	Kolita	Lemon	Lemonade Sparkle	Orange Enerjooz

**Kool-Aid Bursts flavors**
Berry Blue	Cherry	Grape
Lime	Strawberry Kiwi	Tropical Punch

**Kool-Aid Jammers flavors**
Cherry	Cherry (sugar free)	Grape	Kiwi Strawberry
Kiwi Strawberry (sugar free)	Orange	Tropical Punch	Tropical Punch (sugar free)

**Kool-Aid Singles flavors**
Cherry	Grape	Tropical Punch

External links