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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 slogan or 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.
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Kool-Aid Points
Kool-Aid points are tiny boxes on the back of Kool-Aid packets that can be clipped out and later redeemed for prizes at the "Wacky Warehouse." Prizes include decoder rings, T-shirts, various music players, and shoes. • Older versions of Kool-Aid points contained a picture of a Kool-Aid Man pitcher, the words PROOF-OF-PURCHASE, and a point value. Newer versions contain the Kool-Aid man's face, the words "Kool-Aid POINT", and a point value.
Generally, points would be collected and sent in with a Wacky Warehouse order form, along with money for shipping and handling. Typical prizes included mugs, t-shirts, boxer shorts, canteens, fannypacks (bum bags), kazoos, hats, cassette players, etc and varied in point value. • A cardboard bank was available to store Kool-Aid points in. When the flavor Purplesaurus Rex debuted, the point value on each packet was doubled. •
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Kool-Aid comics and video games
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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 band 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.
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Flavors
There are many different flavors and types of Kool-Aid.
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Original 6 flavors
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Past and current flavors in the U.S.
Note: some flavors appear under different names.
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Other flavors worldwide
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Kool-Aid Bursts flavors
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Kool-Aid Jammers flavors
Yellow Banana
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Kool-Aid Singles flavors
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Kool-Aid Aguas Frescas flavors
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Sugar-Free Kool-Aid Flavors
Soarin' Strawberry Lemonade
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"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/murder 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," a large majority of the 913 people later found dead drank the brew. (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."
The phrase is also heard in the wrestling world. Any wrestler or fan who was drawn to ECW by former owner, now G.M., Paul Heyman, was considered to have drunk his Kool-Aid. The phrase goes "He drank Paul Heyman's Kool-Aid."
Another phrase, "Kool-Aid Mom," is used to describe a mother in whose home her children's friends habitually congregate. The reference is used in a complimentary fashion, to imply that the mother creates a home-away-from-home atmosphere for her children's friends.
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Other uses
Kool-Aid's high concentration of food coloring and its low retail cost (US$0.25 a packet as of 2006) has led some to use Kool-Aid to dye fabric and hair. Using a packet of kool-aid, a spoonful of corn starch, and a small amount of water, a paste can be made and applied to the 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. Journalist Tom Wolfe's recollection of their mad tour, The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, captured this aspect of the decade.
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.
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Kool-Aid in pop culture
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Recently, Kool-Aid and the Kool-Aid Man have made a comeback in the mainstream. In the first episode of the cartoon series Family Guy, the Kool-Aid man made a cameo appearance, while bursting through a wall of a courtroom after Peter is sentenced to serve jailtime for trying to give back the welfare money he accumulated. In a later episode of Family Guy called Peterotica, a man listening to a book on tape of one of Peter's erotic novels accidentally crashes his car through the Kool-Aid Man's wall, prompting the Kool-Aid Man to comment "You know, from the other side, that's kind of annoying..." Later, in the same episode, his wall is crashed through again just after he finished repairing it. 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!"
Humor publication the onion's book 'our dumb century' reports on the jonestown massacre with the headline 'giant anthropomorphic juice pitcher among victims of jonestown suicide'.
Popular American Fox News anchor Bill O'Reilly, in his show The O'Reilly Factor, regularly uses references to Kool-Aid to describe individuals with unrelenting political views of one extreme or the other, or someone who has wrongly stated an opinion as fact. O'Reilly often tells the authors of letters "Enjoy the Kool Aid!" This is in reference to the Jamestown mass suicide organized by evangelist Jim Jones where scores of members were duped into drinking a cyanide-laced beverage similar to Kool Aid.
Kool-Aid is the name of an album and a song by British band Big Audio Dynamite II, even though Kool-Aid is not officially available in the UK.
The Kool-Aid Man also appears in strips from the online comics The Perry Bible Fellowship (in the strip entitled "Kids Are Thirsty") and Penny Arcade (in "Cultural References 'R Us"*).
Often used on popular Toronto Maple Leafs fan site http://www.tmlfans.ca in the discussion forum. When a member believes whatever is said by the team's general manager John Ferguson Jr., they are said to be "Drinking his Kool-Aid".
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.
Kool-Aid is cited in Mudvayne's song "The End Of All Things To Come"*.
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Notes
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Recently in the Yahoo! Advertising Week 2006 The Kool-Aid man became one of America's favorite icons and was inducted into the Madison Avenue Walk of Fame.
Dane Cook has also made a bit about the Kool Aid Man in his stand up comedy acts.
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