Nebraska Encourages You To Drink The Kool-Aid

In Cocoa Beach, Florida, a 22-year-old man is charged with beating up his elderly father during an argument about Kool-Aid. The father who uses a cane tried to give his son advice on how to properly make Kool-Aid, there was a disagreement and the son punched his father two or three times in the head.

What’s there to argue about? The directions are right on the package. And they haven’t changed much in 86 years.

Edwin Perkins invented Kool-Aid in his mother’s kitchen in Hastings, Nebraska in 1927. It was originally a liquid concentrate but he figured out a way to remove the liquid leaving behind just a powder. Every year on the second weekend in August the town of Hastings celebrates a festival called Kool-Aid Days. Kool-Aid is Nebraska’s official state soft drink.

Tropical Punch is one of the most popular Kool-Aid flavors, but it wasn’t one of the original six. The six original Kool-Aid flavors are Cherry, Grape, Lemon-Lime, Orange, Raspberry and Strawberry. There have been dozens of other flavors introduced and some withdrawn over the years.

The original idea behind Kool-Aid was to add the flavor packets to sugar and water, but you can buy it with the sugar already added and there are sugar-free versions too.

Kraft Foods, the company that owns Kool-Aid had a public relations nightmare when the religious followers of Jim Jones committed suicide in 1978 by drinking from a vat of Kool-Aid laced with cyanide and other drugs. Kraft Foods insisted it wasn’t Kool-Aid, but the cheaper Flavor Aid instead.