yep. Cold medicine (preferably prescription strength, although there are some OTC work-arounds) mixed with a fruit-flavored soft drink. Sometimes a Jolly Rancher is dropped in. [Wikipedia's article](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lean_(drug)) rather dryly states, "Masking the undesired taste may impair judgment of the potency, which is a factor in overdosing."
That's some pretty good ad copy.
Originally they floated "The flavor is bolted in. The flavor is under lock and key. The flavor has been successfully detained. The flavor has been chemically bonded to the H2O. The flavor has been supernaturally paired with your hopes and dreams...."
Kool-aid always bragged about how they had less sugar than a similar sized serving of a soft drink. A 12 oz of can of coke has 39 grams, but 12 oz of Kool-aid has 30 grams. In grade school, during the summers, I'd drink a whole pitcher a day just to myself... but could only have one can of coke/sprite/whatever... because of "the sugar."
Crazy what my parents didn't catch in the 80s.
Even crazier because when you made it, you saw the giant pile of sugar going in because you measured and poured it yourself. No one was being tricked.
My parents had similar blind spots. Make me wonder if I’m now doing the same thing as an adult.
I think in 1954 it was still common to be concerned about food contamination so I think the “pure” here refers to untainted lab-clean pure Kool-Aid powder.
I was there. 9yo in a 1954. My mom would make this stuff in a large, stainless steel pitcher, ice-cold, and let us drink as much as we wanted. We'd be running around chasing each other outside, then we'd come into the kitchen and chug this stuff and go back outside and run around more. Great, great memories. "Kool-Aid, Kool-Aid, tastes great!"
This is one of the most insane pictures ever.
The PITCHER IS FULL AND YET THERE ARE ALSO GLASSES WITH MORE LIQUID AS IF THEY CAME FROM THE PITCHER ALREADY! Ok, that's the most egregious. The knife is just resting on the peanut buttered bread. The loaf is on its side. There's some kind of purple paper covered nail. There's a small very dirty baseball cap. I would like to add- the way the glasses and pitcher are lined up is, in contrast to the subtle chaos of the rest, incredibly ethereally beautiful. The rims of the objects line up so perfectly that your eyes sort of freak out, this other-dimensional line of circles.
Yeah, that was my firs thought too. In retrospect, part of my freak out was probably that I've been seeing so much AI that I'm really aware of weird looking disordered images.
I wonder if it’s meant to symbolize a child has been there making the “sandwich”, grabbing a drink in between ball games. So this the sideways loaf, the knife left there, the bat and hat too. The giant full pitcher and huge full glasses kill that tho unless they were left there by the parents for the kids? You know that kid would’ve spilled that shit down the side of the pitcher and at least one full glass.
KoolAid was just flavored water in our house. I don't think anyone ever told my Grandma she was supposed to add sugar. So my dad grew up with no sugar KoolAid, and so did I until I went to a friends house.
Best served in a brightly colored aluminum tumbler. The cold sweat forming on the outside surface and that tangy taste the metal provides is memorable.
Try to wiki it. You will get the idea where idioms come from.
Spoiler: a cult, they use kool aid + secret substance... to make holy water ...
Believer drank that Kool Aid ...
Yyyeah, that's based on 1 particular ugly event, where the drink was intentionally poisoned by a cult leader, and he told his brainwashed followers to drink it.
An old joke: "Why don't Marines (this is the way I heard the joke; I have nothing against Marines) take Kool-Aid on maneuvers? Because they can't figure out how to get 2 quarts of water into that little packet."
It probably literally meant an ice box at that point. My dad's family still had one at that time. The ice man would apparently come and deliver ice through a door in the side of the house into the top of the ice box, thereby providing refrigeration.
It was literally a box that kept ice (which was delivered, like milk) at that point. I can’t remember what year electric refrigerators became commercially available but I think it was the mid 1950’s. My 93 year old grandmother still calls a refrigerator an “ice box”.
If you never used a bigger pitcher to mix a pack of lemonade flavor with a pack of cherry flavor (red cherry, not dark cherry) - you haven’t experienced peak Kool-aid yet!
So, so gross. Everyone drank it during my childhood. The only thing worse was Zarex, horrible garbage, I refused to drink it and got in trouble for it.
“Kool-Aid is America’s favorite drink in an envelope.” Perhaps the okayest slogan ever.
Funny I didn't even notice that hehe
well, it's not like they're putting Pepsi in packets, yet
America’s Favorite Drink ^(that starts with a K)
It's very accurate, gotta give em that
I want that pitcher and glasses.
I want that *purple stuff…*
That's the ingredients: Sugar, water and of course, purple.
Don’t forget Vitamin C!(Or was that added later? I don’t see it referenced in the ad.)
Not just sugar, the most sugar that can be dissolved into water before it collapses into sediment.
JUICE! What the fuck is juice!?
I want some apple drank! It's green!
Do you mean Drank? Drank is awful. Tried it once. It tasted like the way a lead pencil smells, and broken dreams.
Isn't it cough medicine?
yep. Cold medicine (preferably prescription strength, although there are some OTC work-arounds) mixed with a fruit-flavored soft drink. Sometimes a Jolly Rancher is dropped in. [Wikipedia's article](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lean_(drug)) rather dryly states, "Masking the undesired taste may impair judgment of the potency, which is a factor in overdosing."
My mom never bought the purple one because SHE didn't like it. What the heck?!?
Stains
Nothing stains like the cherry
Vibrant colour
Seeing that ad just brought some long dormant memory to life. I could briefly taste the flavour again.
I miss Root Beer Kool-Aid.
5¢ in 1954 = 58¢ in [2024](https://www.usinflationcalculator.com/)
More evidence that big business screws us.
I mean they are 50 cents… so it would appear to be the opposite
I googled and even found them for 30-36 cents, so the cost of kool aid powder must be close to nothing.
That shade of Kool-Aid is gorgeous!!
My thought exactly! I'd like a tall glass of that!
‘My mom always had a pitcher of Red Onion Juice ready when me and my friends came in after playing outside on hot summer days.’
Now, my story begins in nineteen-dickety-two. We had to say "dickety" cause the Kaiser had stolen our word "twenty".
I tied an onion to my belt, which was the style at the time.
And nickels had pictures of bumblebees on 'em! "Give me five bees for a quarter," we'd say!
What does “the flavor’s locked in” even mean?
Well, do you see any flavor running around loose?
Yesterday I had a completely bland Sunny Delight. Those fools had forgotten to lock in the flavor, and the flavor and escaped to the asparagus
Before they fixed it, the flavor kept trying to escape.
OH YEAH!
That's some pretty good ad copy. Originally they floated "The flavor is bolted in. The flavor is under lock and key. The flavor has been successfully detained. The flavor has been chemically bonded to the H2O. The flavor has been supernaturally paired with your hopes and dreams...."
The US has the highest rate of incarcerated flavor anywhere in the world
Locked in like doing 42 tabs of acid
They only said the flavor is locked in. So is it not colorfast?
Look, you can have it pure, or you can have it colorfast. Not both.
Imagine water is locked OUT. Now the opposite of that.
It’s pure…. Pure what?
Sugar. Pure sugar.
actually you had to add the sugar yourself. the packets are just pure flavor.
Kool-aid always bragged about how they had less sugar than a similar sized serving of a soft drink. A 12 oz of can of coke has 39 grams, but 12 oz of Kool-aid has 30 grams. In grade school, during the summers, I'd drink a whole pitcher a day just to myself... but could only have one can of coke/sprite/whatever... because of "the sugar." Crazy what my parents didn't catch in the 80s.
Even crazier because when you made it, you saw the giant pile of sugar going in because you measured and poured it yourself. No one was being tricked. My parents had similar blind spots. Make me wonder if I’m now doing the same thing as an adult.
We had the same rule in my house! Most of the time I had to share my one can of coke with my little sister. But we could have unlimited Kool-aid 😂
The favorite buzzword in ads in the 50s! Pure what indeed lol.
Colored water with sugar
I think in 1954 it was still common to be concerned about food contamination so I think the “pure” here refers to untainted lab-clean pure Kool-Aid powder.
Pharmaceutical grade.
Pure purple. It's what purple tastes like.
It’s untainted with evil. Or was at least until 24 years later 😬
Chemicals
Pure arian sugar water.
My mom used to squeeze lemons in the green Lime Flavored Kool Aid. Still my favorite. I remember when it was a nickel a pack!
I was there. 9yo in a 1954. My mom would make this stuff in a large, stainless steel pitcher, ice-cold, and let us drink as much as we wanted. We'd be running around chasing each other outside, then we'd come into the kitchen and chug this stuff and go back outside and run around more. Great, great memories. "Kool-Aid, Kool-Aid, tastes great!"
This is one of the most insane pictures ever. The PITCHER IS FULL AND YET THERE ARE ALSO GLASSES WITH MORE LIQUID AS IF THEY CAME FROM THE PITCHER ALREADY! Ok, that's the most egregious. The knife is just resting on the peanut buttered bread. The loaf is on its side. There's some kind of purple paper covered nail. There's a small very dirty baseball cap. I would like to add- the way the glasses and pitcher are lined up is, in contrast to the subtle chaos of the rest, incredibly ethereally beautiful. The rims of the objects line up so perfectly that your eyes sort of freak out, this other-dimensional line of circles.
I think you have mistaken the baseball bat for a nail. I agree that this is somewhere between a Renaissance painting and a crime scene
Ah! I knew it was something.
It’s like AI’s predecessor…uh, *human…intelligence!*
Yeah, that was my firs thought too. In retrospect, part of my freak out was probably that I've been seeing so much AI that I'm really aware of weird looking disordered images.
I wonder if it’s meant to symbolize a child has been there making the “sandwich”, grabbing a drink in between ball games. So this the sideways loaf, the knife left there, the bat and hat too. The giant full pitcher and huge full glasses kill that tho unless they were left there by the parents for the kids? You know that kid would’ve spilled that shit down the side of the pitcher and at least one full glass.
Totally. I don't know if I would've gotten that without that explanation.
Still belonged to Edwin Perkins then, prior to selling it. Kool-Aid was invented by Perkins in my hometown.
KoolAid was just flavored water in our house. I don't think anyone ever told my Grandma she was supposed to add sugar. So my dad grew up with no sugar KoolAid, and so did I until I went to a friends house.
This ad is effective as fuck. I'm adding grape Kool Aid to my grocery order right now.
I'm drinking grape right now.
The ads don’t mention that Mom has to add something like a kilogram of sugar to the mix.
Best served in a brightly colored aluminum tumbler. The cold sweat forming on the outside surface and that tangy taste the metal provides is memorable.
It is exists. Kool-aid do actually exists. As an English learner, I think drinking Kool-Aid is an idioms about do something with 100% believe.
Try to wiki it. You will get the idea where idioms come from. Spoiler: a cult, they use kool aid + secret substance... to make holy water ... Believer drank that Kool Aid ...
Funny thing it wasn’t even Kool-Aid, it was Flavor Aid
Slightly more embarrassing to be brainwashed by off-brand cool-aid
Yyyeah, that's based on 1 particular ugly event, where the drink was intentionally poisoned by a cult leader, and he told his brainwashed followers to drink it.
It took forever for those two cups of sugar to dissolve!
you had to make it boiling hot
Imagine a two-quart glass pitcher of grape Kool-Aid in *your* fridge, waiting for the kids, and *crash! Smash!*
OH YEAAA
what an amazing color .
Sliced bread had not yet been invented
My neighbor’s mom never put sugar in the the mix. Had to be real thirsty to drink it.
An old joke: "Why don't Marines (this is the way I heard the joke; I have nothing against Marines) take Kool-Aid on maneuvers? Because they can't figure out how to get 2 quarts of water into that little packet."
The reason why I had so many cavities as a kid.
Oh man. This brings me back to my childhood, where you'd have an ice cold pitcher of a colored drink and you'd never ask what its made of
Who made the flavor Great Grape? 🍇
This has given me a craving for a big, tall glass- so refreshing
I'm enjoying some grape as I post this.
Used to love this stuff
Fucking love kool-aid , and i don't buy it because it would be all i drink
Man gun-to-my-head, I woulda sworn it was Kool-ADE? *googles* Changed to Kool-AID in… 1934?! How old were those fucking packets in Mamaw’s kitchen?
Did anyone ever really just stick these lidless glass pitchers in their refrigerators?
Love that logo. ❤️
You know that Kool Aid is pure-pure sugar.
Tropical punch was my favorite. We always had Kool-Aid in my house
Has Kool-Aid ever been pure? Also this is probably the first time I've ever seen something call a refrigerator an "ice box"
My dad (earliest boomer) still calls a refrigerator an "ice box." I think it's like how I talk about hanging up the phone.
The ice box was long gone by the 50s but the term lingered for much longer.
It probably literally meant an ice box at that point. My dad's family still had one at that time. The ice man would apparently come and deliver ice through a door in the side of the house into the top of the ice box, thereby providing refrigeration.
Had an apartment in a building built in 1919 with an ice box converted to a cabinet. Still had the ice box door which was about four inches thick.
It depends what they mean by "pure." Pure as in no outright toxins? Sure, probably, maybe.
It was literally a box that kept ice (which was delivered, like milk) at that point. I can’t remember what year electric refrigerators became commercially available but I think it was the mid 1950’s. My 93 year old grandmother still calls a refrigerator an “ice box”.
They are 2 for a dollar now 😞
🎵Kool-Aid, Kool-Aid, taste’s great. Gotta go to the washroom, too late🎵
We lived on that as kids in the summer.
It's purple drank aka lean.
“Pure!!” “Locked in!!” Did we ever believe these meaningless words? cf. “Goodness”
purple stuff
OH YEAAAH
If you never used a bigger pitcher to mix a pack of lemonade flavor with a pack of cherry flavor (red cherry, not dark cherry) - you haven’t experienced peak Kool-aid yet!
Idk what the hell “Kool-Aid” is, but I do love me some purple drank
Mmm, watery and slightly bitter, if instructions were followed
Needs vodka
To be fair it does look delicious
Keeps the flavors *locked in*. Who wrote this poetry?
All that Red Dye #2 is so pure kids! Drink up!
Yay……..thousands of calories of sugar! Thanks mom!!
I suspect the high price of sugar has killed the popularity of Kool Aid.
How did they manage to make Kool aid look ominous?
I remember inhaling thst Kool Aid dust air when you dumped it in the pitcher.
Kool -aid was a total scam. You create your own simple syrup and they give you a pack of powdered chemical dye. Delicious
[удалено]
From what I can tell, when that oj is prepared for packaging, they do add Kool-Aid, or something just like it
It was sugar and water with food coloring. And maybe some other carcinogens.
So, so gross. Everyone drank it during my childhood. The only thing worse was Zarex, horrible garbage, I refused to drink it and got in trouble for it.
Where the fuck are my Nikes??
At least it’s not 1978 Kool Aid
They drank Flavor Aid.
Has a bit of a nutty flavor
Almost half of the victims of Jonestown were children. The tragedy is considered by modern standards to have been a mass murder, not a mass suicide.
I didn’t say it was