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Kool-Aid is an artificially flavored soft drink concentrate made by Kraft Foods. Kool-Aid is sold as a powder to be mixed with water and a sweetener (sugar or an artificial sweetener). Some versions include the sweetener with the flavor concentrate, only requiring the addition of water.
Kool-Aid was invented by Edwin Perkins in Hastings, Nebraska. Its predecessor was a liquid concentrate called Fruit Smack. To reduce shipping costs, in 1927, Perkins discovered a way to remove the liquid from Fruit Smack, leaving only a powder. This powder was named Kool-Ade (and a few years later, Kool-Aid due to a change in government regulations regarding the need for fruit juice in products using the term "Ade"). Perkins moved his production to Chicago in 1931, and Kool-Aid was sold to General Foods in 1953.
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, seen in Kool-Aid's advertising. He was introduced shortly after General Foods acquired the brand. In TV and print ads, Kool-Aid Man was known for bursting suddenly through walls, seemingly summoned by the making and imbibing of Kool-Aid by kids. His catch-phrase is "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.
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. Kurt Cobain, of the band Nirvana, had his hair dyed with red Kool-Aid before a performance on Saturday Night Live. Pink admitted to using Kool-Aid to dye her hair for her first concert.
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.
Llano Estacado Winery in Lubbock, Texas sells a chilled wine that is referred to as 'Texas Kool Aid'.
Coors Beer is sometimes referred to as Colorado Kool-Aid. The phrase was made popular by the song of the same name by country music artist Johnny PayCheck.
"Drinking the Kool-Aid"
The idiomatic expression "drinking the Kool-Aid" was originally a reference to the Merry Pranksters, a group of people associated with novelist Ken Kesey who in the early 1960's traveled around the United States and held events called "Acid Tests", where LSD-laced Kool-Aid was passed out to the public (LSD was legal at that time). Those who "drank the Kool-Aid" passed the "Acid Test." "Drinking the Kool-Aid" in that context meant accepting the LSD drug culture, and the Pranksters' "turned on" point of view.
"Drinking the Kool-Aid" is also now closely associated with the 1978 cult mass-suicide in Jonestown, Guyana. Jim Jones, the leader of the Peoples Temple, convinced his followers to move to Jonestown. Late in the year he then ordered his flock to commit suicide by drinking grape-flavored Flavor Aid laced with potassium cyanide. In what is now commonly called the "Jonestown Massacre," 913 of the 1100 Jonestown residents drank the brew and died. (The discrepancy between the idiom and the actual occurrence is likely due to Flavor Aid's relative obscurity versus the easily recognizable Kool-Aid.)
One lasting legacy of the Jonestown tragedy is the saying, "Don’t drink the Kool-Aid." This has come to mean, "Don’t trust any group you find to be a little on the kooky side," or "Whatever they tell you, don't believe it too strongly."
The phrase can also be used in the opposite sense to indicate that one has blindly embraced a particular philosophy or perspective (a "Kool-Aid Drinker"). This usage is generally limited to those in or commenting on United States politics, but also appears in discussions on computer technology, where someone who is a staunch advocate for a particular technology is described as having "drunk the Kool-Aid". This is also frequently used in discussions about sports; when a fan makes an overly-optimistic prediction or hopeful statement, usually about a traditionally woeful team or franchise, others may comment that he is "drinking the Kool-Aid." This is the only usage of "Kool-Aid" that non-American speakers of English are likely to recognise.
Kool-Aid comics and video games
There were seven Kool-Aid Man comics made in the 80s. Each of them had two stories, each one involving the Kool-Aid Man and a bunch of kids fighting off yellow spikey characters called thirsties.
Two video game versions of Kool-Aid Man were made for the Atari 2600 and the Mattel Intellivision, which were a tie-in with the comic books. Both were noted for being totaly different games, giving gamers two different experiences involving Kool-Aid Man on each system. It was a change from the norm, where most games that were ported were exactly the same on each system. It is debatable how good the games were, or which system had the better version game. But it was another use of popular marketing that was done at the time, using the famous pitcher icon that had been on TV commercials for so long in a fun and thrilling way in the new video game boom that was going on at the time in the early 1980's. They are considered to be amongst the more scarce (but not necessarily rare) 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 "Kool-Aid Man" sketch, which featured Cook talking about a nightmare involving the talking bowl of punch, phrases such as "oh Yeah" and Kool-Aid references are becoming widely used again. In the first episode of the cartoon series Family Guy, the Kool-Aid man made a cameo appearance, while bursting through a wall. In a later episode of Family Guy, Peter accidentally crashes his car through the Kool-Aid Man's wall, prompting him to comment "You know, from the other side, that's really annoying..." Later, in the same episode, his wall is crashed through again just after he finished repairing it (he then dissolves into a state of rage). He also appears in the Family Guy Movie, at the premiere in the opening frame, as the date of Drew Barrymore. When asked by the press on the red carpet if "Things are going well with Drew", he replies with an "Oh yeah!"
Kool-Aid is the name of an album and a song by British band Big Audio Dynamite II, even though Kool-Aid is not available in the UK.
The Kool-Aid Man also appears in a strip from the online comic The Perry Bible Fellowship entitled "Kids Are Thirsty."
Because of its supposed role in past cult activities, Kool-Aid has also come to acquire a dark reference to the occult, though often in a whimsically humorous context.
Flavors
There are many different flavors and types of Kool-Aid.
Original six flavors
- Cherry
- Grape
- Lemon-Lime
- Turquoise
- Raspberry
- Strawberry
Past and current flavors in the U.S.
Other flavors worldwide
- Frutas
- Frutas Vermilhas
- Grape Blackberry
- Grosella
- 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
- Grape
- Kiwi Strawberry
- Orange
- Tropical Punch
Kool-Aid Singles flavors
- Cherry
- Grape
- Tropical Punch
Kool-Aid Aguas Frescas flavors
- Jamaica
- Tamarindo
- Mango
- Pineapple
- Tangerine
Other Kool-Aid Product(s)
- Lip gloss
External links
"Kool-Aid"