 | |
| Product type | Drink mix |
|---|---|
| Owner | Kraft Heinz |
| Country | United States |
| Introduced | 1927 |
| Markets | Worldwide |
| Website | koolaid.com |
Kool-Aid is an American brand of flavored drink mix owned by Kraft Heinz based in Chicago, Illinois. The powder form was created by Edwin Perkins in 1927 based upon a liquid concentrate named Fruit Smack.
Kool-Aid was invented by Edwin Perkins in Hastings, Nebraska. All of his experiments took place in his mother's kitchen. [1] 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-Aid. Perkins moved his production to Chicago in 1931 and Kool-Aid was sold to General Foods in 1953. [2] Hastings still celebrates a yearly summer festival called Kool-Aid Days on the second weekend in August in honor of their city's claim to fame. Kool-Aid is known as Nebraska's official soft drink. [3] [4]
An agreement between Kraft Foods and SodaStream in 2012 made Kool-Aid's various flavors available for consumer purchases and use with SodaStream's home soda maker machine. [5]
There is an active scene of Kool-Aid collectors. A rare old Kool-Aid package can be traded for up to several hundred dollars on auction websites. [6]
Kool-Aid is usually sold in powder form, in either packets or small tubs. The actual beverage is prepared by mixing the powder with sugar (the packets of powder are usually, though not always, unsweetened) and water, typically by the pitcherful. The drink is usually either served with ice or refrigerated and served chilled. Additionally, there are some sugar-free varieties.
Kool-Aid is also sold as single-serving packets designed to be poured into bottled water, as small plastic bottles with pre-mixed drink, or as such novelties as ice cream or fizzing tablets.
The colors in Kool-Aid will stain, and hence the substance can be used as a dye for either hair [7] or wool. [8]
The Kool-Aid Man, an anthropomorphic pitcher filled with Kool-Aid, is the mascot of Kool-Aid. The character was introduced shortly after General Foods acquired the brand in the 1950s. In television and print ads, the Kool-Aid Man was known for randomly bursting through walls of children's homes and proceeding to make a batch of Kool-Aid for them. His catchphrase is "Oh, yeah!". In 2013, Kraft decided to overhaul the Kool-Aid Man, reimagining him as a CGI character, "a celebrity trying to show that he's just an ordinary guy." [9]
Starting in 2011, Kraft began allocating the majority of the Kool-Aid marketing budget towards Latinos. According to the brand, almost 20 percent of Kool-Aid drinkers are Hispanic, and slightly more than 20 percent are African-American. [10]
| Original 6 flavors [11] | Cherry, Grape, Lemon-Lime, Orange, Raspberry, Strawberry [12] |
| Singles flavors [13] | Black Cherry, Tropical Punch, Lemonade, Pink Lemonade, Cherry, Watermelon, Orange, Summer Punch |
| Sugar-free flavors[ citation needed ] | Cherry, Grape, Lemonade, Soarin' Strawberry Lemonade, Tropical Punch, Raspberry, Watermelon, KiwiLime |
| Water flavors [14] | Jamaica, Mandarina-Tangerine, Mango, Tamarindo, Piña-Pineapple |
| Other flavors worldwide or previously available [14] | Apple, Arctic Green Apple, Berry Blue, Bunch Berry, Blastin' Berry Cherry, Blue Berry Blast, Blue Moon Berry, Candy Apple, Cherry, Cherry Cracker, Chocolate, Cola, Eerie Orange, Frutas, Vermelhas, Golden Nectar, Grape, Grape Blackberry, Grape Tang, Melon Mango, Strawberry Splash, Great Blueberry, Great Blue-dini, Groselha, Guaraná, Ice Blue Raspberry Lemonade, Incrediberry, Kickin-Kiwi-Lime, Kolita, Lemon, Lemon Ice, Lemonade, Lemonade Sparkle, Lemon-Lime, Lime, Man-o-Mangoberry, Mango, Mountainberry Punch, Oh-Yeah Orange-Pineapple, Orange, Orange Enerjooz, Peach, Pina-Pineapple, Pink Lemonade, Pink Swimmingo, Purplesaurus Rex, Rainbow Punch, Raspberry, Roarin' Raspberry Cranberry, Rock-a-Dile Red, Root Beer, Scary Black Cherry, Scary Blackberry, Shaking Starfruit, Sharkleberry Fin, Slammin' Strawberry-Kiwi, Soarin' Strawberry-Lemonade, Solar Strawberry-Starfruit, Strawberry, Strawberry Falls Punch, Strawberry Split, Strawberry-Raspberry, Sunshine Punch, Surfin' Berry Punch, Swirlin' Strawberry-Starfruit, Tangerine, Tropical Punch, Watermelon, Watermelon-Cherry |
"Drinking the Kool-Aid" is a phrase suggesting that one has mindlessly adopted a dogma of a group or a (cult) leader without fully understanding the ramifications or implications. The backdrop of this are events culminating in the 1978 Jonestown Massacre. At Jonestown, Guyana, followers of Jim Jones' Temple drank from a metal vat containing a mixture of "Kool Aid", cyanide, and prescription drugs Valium, Phenergan, and chloral hydrate. Present-day descriptions of the event sometimes claim the beverage was not Kool-Aid, but Flavor Aid, [15] a less-expensive product from Jel Sert reportedly found at the site. [16] Kraft Foods, the maker of Kool-Aid, has stated the same. [17] [18] Implied by this accounting of events is that the reference to the Kool-Aid brand owes exclusively to its being better-known among Americans. Others are less categorical. [15] Both brands are known to have been among the commune's supplies: Film footage shot inside the compound prior to the events of November shows Jones opening a large chest in which boxes of both Flavor Aid and Kool-Aid are visible. [19] [ better source needed ] Criminal investigators testifying at the Jonestown inquest spoke of finding packets of "cool aid" (sic), and eyewitnesses to the incident are also recorded as speaking of "cool aid" or "Cool Aid." [20] However, it is unclear whether they intended to refer to the actual Kool-Aid–brand drink or were using the name in a generic sense that might refer to any powdered flavored beverage.
There have been multiple documented instances of Kool-Aid being spiked with the psychedelic drug lysergic acid diethylamide. Most notable of these was during Project MKUltra, in which subjects would be given Kool-Aid that was spiked with LSD, before being brainwashed and psychologically tortured. [21]
Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters frequently held and advertised parties they called the Acid Tests, during which they gave out Kool-Aid that was laced with LSD. Tom Wolfe later wrote about these parties in his book The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test .
Cola is a carbonated soft drink flavored with vanilla, cinnamon, citrus oils, and other flavorings. Cola became popular worldwide after the American pharmacist John Stith Pemberton invented Coca-Cola, a trademarked brand, in 1886, which was imitated by other manufacturers. Most colas originally contained caffeine from the kola nut, leading to the drink's name, though other sources of caffeine are generally used in modern formulations. The Pemberton cola drink also contained a coca plant extract. His non-alcoholic recipe was inspired by the coca wine of pharmacist Angelo Mariani, created in 1863.
Jell-O, stylised as JELL-O, is an American brand offering a variety of powdered gelatin dessert, pudding, and no-bake cream pie mixes. The original gelatin dessert is the signature of the brand. "Jell-O" is a registered trademark of Kraft Heinz, and is based in Chicago, Illinois.
A soft drink is any water-based flavored drink, usually but not necessarily carbonated, and typically including added sweetener. Flavors used can be natural or artificial. The sweetener may be a sugar, high-fructose corn syrup, fruit juice, a sugar substitute, or some combination of these. Soft drinks may also contain caffeine, colorings, preservatives and other ingredients.
Hastings is a city and the county seat of Adams County, Nebraska, United States. The population was 25,152 at the 2020 census, making it the 8th most populous city in Nebraska.
A milkshake is a sweet beverage made by blending milk, ice cream, and flavorings or sweeteners such as butterscotch, caramel sauce, chocolate syrup, or fruit syrup into a thick, sweet, cold mixture. It may also be made using a base made from non-dairy products, including plant milks such as almond milk, coconut milk, or soy milk. Dry ingredients such as whole fruit, nuts, seeds, candy, or cookies may be incorporated.
Cream soda is a sweet soft drink. Generally flavored with vanilla and based on the taste of an ice cream float, a wide range of variations can be found worldwide.
Flavor Aid is a non-carbonated soft drink beverage made by The Jel Sert Company in West Chicago, Illinois. It was introduced in 1929 and sold throughout the United States as an unsweetened, powdered concentrate drink mix, similar to Kool-Aid brand drink mix.
Lunchables is an American brand of food and snacks manufactured by Kraft Heinz in Chicago, Illinois, and marketed under the Oscar Mayer brand. They were initially introduced in Seattle in 1988 before being released nationally in 1989. Many Lunchables products are produced in a Garland, Texas, facility, and are then distributed across the United States.
Tang is an American drink mix brand that was formulated by General Foods Corporation food scientist William A. Mitchell and General Foods Corporation chemist William Bruce James in 1957, and first marketed in powdered form in 1959. The Tang brand is currently owned in most countries by Mondelēz International, a North American company spun off from Kraft Foods in 2012. Kraft Heinz owns the Tang brand in North America.
Hires Root Beer was an American brand of root beer that was manufactured by Keurig Dr Pepper. Introduced in 1876, it was one of the longest continuously made soft drinks in the United States.
Capri-Sun is a brand of juice concentrate–based drinks manufactured by the German company Wild and regional licensees. Rudolf Wild invented the drink in 1969 and introduced it in West Germany as Capri-Sonne. It is now sold in over 100 countries, with licensees including Kraft Foods in the United States and Coca-Cola Europacific Partners in parts of Europe. It is one of the most popular juice brands in the world; as of 2023, roughly 6 billion pouches are sold per year globally.
Country Time is a brand of non-carbonated lemon-flavored drink mix and soft drink. The powdered mix is produced by Kraft Foods.
Crystal Light is an American brand of powdered and artificially sweetened beverage mixes produced by Kraft Heinz. It was introduced in 1982 to a test market and released to the public in April 1984. General Foods, a now defunct company, were the original sellers of the product, but now it is sold by Kraft Foods. It is available in a wide variety of flavors, such as lemonade, sweet tea, and fruit punch.
Edwin Elijah Perkins, born in Lewis, Iowa, United States, invented the powdered drink mix Kool-Aid in 1927 in Hastings, Nebraska, after his family had moved to Hendley, Nebraska from Iowa in 1893.
A slushy is a type of beverage made of flavored ice and a drink, similar to granitas but with a more liquid composition. It is also commonly called a slush, slurpee, frozen beverage, or frozen drink. A slushie can either be carbonated or non-carbonated; the carbonated version is sometimes called a frozen carbonated drink or frozen carbonated beverage.
"Drinking the Kool-Aid" is most strongly believing in and accepting a deadly, deranged, or foolish ideology or concept based only upon the overpowering coaxing of another; the expression is also used to refer to a person who wrongly has faith in a possibly doomed or dangerous idea because of perceived potential high rewards. The phrase typically carries a negative connotation. It can also be used ironically or humorously to refer to accepting an idea or changing a preference due to popularity, peer pressure, or persuasion. In recent years, it has evolved further to mean extreme dedication to a cause or purpose, so extreme that one would "drink the Kool-Aid" and die for the cause.
A drink mix is a processed-food product, designed to mix usually with water to produce a beverage resembling juice, soda, or other sweet products in flavor. Another type of drink mix is represented by products that are mixed into milk. Most drink mixes are powdered, but some are liquefied.
Instant breakfast typically refers to breakfast food products that are manufactured in a powdered form, which are generally prepared with the addition of milk and then consumed as a drink. Some instant breakfasts are produced and marketed in liquid form. The target market for instant breakfast products includes consumers who tend to be busy, such as students and working adults.
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