Boomers were raised on Kool-Aid. We drank gallons and gallons of the sugary liquid, which is why most of us now have more fillings in our mouths than white teeth.
But having a pack or two of Kool-Aid in the pantry was an inexpensive and convenient way for Moms to be able to serve kids and neighbors a cold drink in the summer, and best of all, the kids loved to make it.
There was an art to making Kool-Aid. First, you had to empty a pack of Kool-Aid plus a heaping cup of sugar in a two-quart container. Then you added just one quart of water. If you stirred briskly, it would more or less dissolve before you added the final quart of water. Sometimes we put ice in with the water and let that melt as part of the liquid. No matter what you did, there was usually some Kool-Aid sediment in the bottom.
The six original Kool-Aid flavors were Cherry, Grape, Lemon-Lime, Orange, Raspberry and Strawberry. Later, General Foods, the owner of Kool-Aid came out with pre-sweetened Kool-Aid that didn’t require sugar, but that was never as good.
Kool-Aid cost 10-cents a pack back when soft drinks were about 10-cents a bottle, but you had to fiddle with the bottles, pay a deposit and return them. With Kool-Aid, you just unpeeled the top of the pack, added sugar, mixed it all up and drank it down.
Kool-Aid really hit its stride in the 1950’s when their mascot, The Kool-Aid Man, hit the TV airways. The Kool-Aid Man would magically burst through the walls of childrens’ homes and make his thirsty friends a big pitcher full.
His catch phrase was, “Oh Yeah!”
And, of yeah, did we ever drink a lot of Kool-Aid!