Flavor Aid

Flavor Aid is a non-carbonated soft drink beverage made by The Jel Sert Company in West Chicago, Illinois. It was introduced in 1929. It is sold throughout the United States as an unsweetened, powdered concentrate drink mix, similar to Kool-Aid brand drink mix.

Flavors

Flavor Aid currently comes in cherry, raspberry, grape, berry punch, tropical punch, orange, pineapple-orange, lemonade, pink lemonade, lemon-lime, strawberry, mango, and kiwi-watermelon flavor.

The manufacturer has also introduced several flavors of Flavor Aid designed to appeal to the Hispanic population with bilingual packaging and various exotic flavors. The Hispanic versions do not include cherry or berry punch, and instead include root beer, mango, apple, Jamaica (hibiscus), tamarindo, tangerine, and pineapple-orange.

Jonestown massacre

The drink became linked to the Jonestown mass murder-and-suicide when it was learned that the cyanide poison taken by or forcibly administered to the commune's members was placed in Flavor Aid. Large barrels filled with the grape variety, laced with the cyanide and a variety of tranquilizer drugs, were found half-consumed amidst the hundreds of bodies. Kool-Aid, rather than Flavor Aid is usually mentioned in connection with the massacre, due to its status as a genericized trademark. This factual error has even spawned the figure of speech "to drink the Kool-Aid". Film of Jonestown many months before the massacre show stocks of both Flavor Aid and its leading competitor within the commune's storehouses, so it is quite possible that both drinks were used as carriers for the poison.

External links

• Flavor Aid brand page, Jel Sert site