In the United States, Labor Day weekend is the unofficial end of summer, but to the people of a little town in Nebraska, it’s always summer. Why? At the Hastings Museum a special permanent exhibit “Kool-Aid: Discover the Dream” is dedicated to the man and his invention that is the town’s claim-to-fame (where you can see the original Kool-Aid Man costume worn in the tv commercials as well as other historical items). I don’t know about you, but Kool-Aid makes me think of summer (besides all the fake, instant food and drink that America is famous for). Edward Perkins invented the soft drink mix in 1927, which was originally a liquid concentrate called Fruit Smack. He had always been fascinated by chemistry, and he wanted to create something similar to the new popular powdered dessert called Jell-O.
Perkins developed a method of removing the liquid from Fruit Smack so the remaining powder could be re-packaged in envelopes (which he designed and printed) under a new name he called Kool-Ade (later changed to Kool-Aid). Like Jell-O it came in six flavors: strawberry, cherry, lemon-lime, grape, orange and raspberry. Kool-Aid proved so popular, production was moved to Chicago. Even though Kool-Aid was sold to General Foods in 1953 (and is now owned by Kraft) the town of Hastings still celebrates its famous invention with a yearly summer festival called Kool-Aid Days on the second weekend of August. Also, Kool-Aid is Nebraska’s official soft drink. But unlike the Jonestown Massacre, it’s okay to “drink the Kool-Aid”.
