When Granny had all seven of us at her home, we were unlikely to get sodas. It was far more common to find she had a stack of Kool Aid packets which we mixed fresh daily to drink. Frankly I think it's hard to beat a glass pitcher of Kool Aid with ice!
I recall one day when Granny had visitors and the adults were all out in the garden gathering some things to carry home with them. My cousins and I decided that what those adults required was a tall glass of something cold to drink and we mixed up a pitcher of Kool aid and filled glasses with ice and took it outside to them on a tray. The grown ups all sat down in the chairs under the oak trees and we served them. I've never forgotten the looks of pleasure on their faces as we handed each a sweating cold glass of ice and cherry Kool Aid. Now I think perhaps they might have preferred a glass of iced tea but not one of them acted as though they were sorry we'd chosen Kool Aid!
We kept Kool Aid on hand in our home as they kids grew up and now we serve it to their children. It's still a favorite with every one and more often than not an adult will opt for a glass as well if we offer it to the children.
Kool-Aid has a long history. In 1889 a young man was born in Lewis, Iowa. His name was Edwin Elijah Perkins. In 1893 the family moved to Funass County, Nebraska and in 1900 the family moved into town of Hendley where Mr. Perkins' father ran a general store. By 1911, Edwin Elijah Perkins was looking for a business of his own and he spent time developing his own products, printing labels and selling these items via mail order.
Eventually, in 1927 he moved to Hastings, Nebraska to be nearer distribution points for his products. Then he developed a drink product called Fruit Smack but the heavy bottles he packaged the product in were costly to ship, prone to breakage and leaking. Eventually Perkins hit upon the idea of dehydrating the liquid and packaging the resulting powder in envelopes he designed and printed himself, renaming the product Kool-Ade. The powder came in six flavors: Grape, Lemon-Lime, Cherry, Orange, Strawberry and Raspberry. In 1929, Kool-Ade was provided to food distributors and was sold all over the United States.
His Kool-Ade product was popular and sold to wholesale grocery and candy stores. In the depression years, he reduced the cost from 10c an envelope to 5c. A nickel was affordable for most families in the depression and so the drink stayed popular through the years when many families struggled.
In 1931, Perkins moved his business to Chicago, Illinois. At this time the product line was renamed. In 1934 the product name was changed to Kool-Aid. In this year also, the product began manufacture and sales overseas, as well.
In 1953, Perkins sold the drink mix to General Foods. They developed the smiling face Pitcher logo with which we are most familiar.
In 1964 a pre-sweetened line was added to the Kool-Aid family. Bugs Bunny was used as the spokesman for that new product.
In 1989, General Foods merged with Kraft Holdings which increased the flavors available to the public. Kraft Heinz still manufacturers the product. Today there are juice packets, ice pops, and many other items but the familiar envelopes of powdered drink mix remain all these many years later for children of all ages to enjoy.
11 comments:
My dad worked as a pressman at a newspaper when I was growing up. Once they had a promotion that included a packet of black cherry KoolAid with every paper. They had tons left over, so my dad brought home a big box. For a couple of years the only flavor of KoolAid on offer in our house was black cherry. I got pretty tired of it.
Cindi, I remember that promotion. A packet was stuck to the newspaper and black cherry was always our favorite!
We drank gallons and gallons of Kool-Aid when we were growing up! I always thought it tasted best at VBS. Now as an adult it is just not the same. Our grandchildren prefer sweet tea because they are little Southerners. So, it has been decades since we had it.
Oh how neat that you featured kool aid! I live about a half hour from Hastings and the museum there has a whole kool aid display in the basement. My kids always thought it was so fun to go there. Hastings still has kool aid days every year. The ou can buy that year’s featured cup and try all kinds of flavors the whole time you’re there. I remember we always had a pitcher of kool aid in the fridge. We didn’t get pop but maybe on a Friday night as a treat. My mom always let us save the kool aid points on the packets and I still have a bunch of the merchandise you could get with them.
I'm sure we must have had it once in awhile but we mostly drank sweet tea at Grandma's house next door. My dad owned a wholesale plumbing supply company and bought Pepsi products by the case to have on hand for his employees. We always had plenty at home, too. With my own kids I mixed apple juice and Kool-Aid fairly often. I can't recall the last time I had Kool-Aid, though. I was never a huge fan, personally. I did, however, like Tang occasionally.
When I was a child I loved Kool Aid. I was so impressed one time when I went to my friends' house for lunch and their Mom made Hypower Tamales for us and served us Kool Aid in those tall colorful aluminum tumblers that were a big style in the late 1950's and early '60's. I can still remember how good those tamales tasted and how special that Kool Aid tasted in that fancy (to me) blue aluminum tumbler. I had never had tamales before then.
When we went boating/camping on the river my mom made a syrup with unsweetened (because that was before the sweetened kind came out)Kool Aid and sugar syrup and some water and put it in a clean Ivory dish soap squirt bottle and put it in the camping ice chest. We each had a cup of our own and We would put cold water from the water jug into the cup and squirt as much Kool Aid into the cup as it took to make it the color we wanted and it tasted so good out there in the heat. Soda was too heavy to carry on the boat, so it was instant coffee, a little milk in the morning for me, and the rest of the time black cherry Kool Aid.(Except for the 1 can of Stag beer that Mom liked to have while she stayed up all night fishing off of the back of the boat until dawn) Too bad no one realized that she had invented Mio, or we'd have been rich.
I love cherry kool aid! I need to make some that is here from a sale. Thanks for reminding me.
I loved reading the story behind Kool Aid. We had it a lot as kids and it's a nice memory.....
I'm so glad you all enjoyed this post! It was fun to look up the information and learn all about something that was very much a part of my childhood summers.
Kool-aid was a staple in our house when I was a kid, and even for a few years after marriage. Greg is a big fan.
Cherry kool-aid and graham crackers were VBS snacks every day, every year.
We're only an hour from Hastings and have been to the museum where the Kool-aid display is.
Tammy, I did wonder how close you were...Now I know!
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