Kool-Aid

Kool-Aid was invented by a Gerard and 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, it was renamed ‘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.

As kids, most important things were centered around something truly exceptional: who had the most toys, who had a pool, which kid could run the fastest, yada yada yada…but when you came to my house, I was the kid who had the Kool-Aid. I think most parents felt like Kool-Aid was a little too unsafe for kids to drink but my parents, straight from the streets of…well, you know, felt differently. It was a nicety for my house to have something to offer since most of my friends had bigger and better things than I did so having Kool-Aid to fill my spirits as well as my belly was like having your cake…and uh, eating some more cake.

In a unique kind of way, it wasn’t the Kool-Aid itself that made the moment but the flavors that perhaps just looked cool in glass. My most remembered visual is seeing the condensation form on the outside of the glass and to see the ice cubes dance in the glass with the engulfing color. Flavors like cherry (or red in my neighborhood), grape, lemon-lime didn’t cut it for ultimate “coolness” but if you had Slammin’ Strawberry Kiwi or Soarin’ Strawberry-Lemonade then you were in the coolest club alive and everyone wanted to share your spot on top of the Cool Hill next to the Cool House, which is where all the cool kids took their Oaths of Coolness.  So, in my weekly allowance of $5, I made sure to grab a bag of the coolest and most stylistic Kool-Aid. It was my style, my thing, and to this day, I still fall back to the days of being the coolest kid on the block with a glass filled with Kool-Aid.

Some guys never grow up. Others just hide trying not to be noticed. Others drink Kool-Aid with one hand and open the door for you to leave with the other.

That’s how I like it.

M.C. Davis