Kool-Aid Time

Fruit Smack, the precursor to Kool-Aid.

Kool-Ade

The original Kool-Aid factory.

Kool-Aid Kid

As promised, the sweetest part of the trip --A visit to the Kool-Aid: Discover the Dream at the Hastings Museum of Natural and Cultural History in Hastings, Nebraska.

A native of southwestern Nebraska, Edwin Perkins was fascinated by food chemistry.  His father owned a general store in town and young Edwin became exposed to new food products such as Jell-O.  Perkins was pretty ambitious.  After graduating from high school he started the town newspaper and was the postmaster in addition to his food experiments.  The most popular food item he invented was Fruit Smack, a concentrated drink mix.  He sold Fruit Smack via a mail order business he set up.

Fruit Smack was problematical though.  Shipping liquids in a glass bottle was expensive and the bottles broke.  By 1927 Perkins moved production to Hastings.  He also devised a way to remove the liquid from Fruit Smack.  This new product was named Kool-Ade.  Packets of the original six flavors, strawberry, cherry, lemon-lime,   grape, orange and raspberry, were sold for a dime.  It was a hit!  First via mail order, and then distributed to grocers.

Production in Hastings only lasted a few years before Kool-Aid moved to Chicago to take advantage of better access to supplies and transportation.  By 1950 300 workers produced a million packets of Kool-Aid a day.  (Condensed history from NebraskaStudies.org and MIT's Inventor of the Week archive.)

The Kool-Aid exhibit at the museum was great.  They entrance was a recreation of the father's general store, they had the green visor Perkins likely wore when inventing Kool-Aid and all sorts of Kool-Aid ephemera.  Taking a page out of the World of Coca-Cola there was even a mini-theater where you could watch Kool-Aid commercials through the years.  Unlike World of Coca-Cola, emotions don't well-up while watching historic Kool-Aid commercials.  The Kool-Aid Pitcher Guy is just as irritating and unsettling today as he was when he crashed through that bowling alley wall back in the 1970s.

The main floor of the museum is a little odd since it consists of dioramas of animals that have never lived in Nebraska and, if I'm not mistaken, the crypt of the museum's benefactor.  The second floor is outstanding with its physical and cultural history of the Great Plains.

Partly because of Kool-Aid and the Perkins' family benevolence, Hastings is a very nice town.  Downtown was spotless.  So spotless that when I saw a stray newspaper coupon supplement on the sidewalk I had to pick it up and toss it in the trash.

Unrelated:  The perfect three versions of one song playlist is -

Cub - "New York City" - original.
They Might Be Giants - "New York City" - popular cover version.
Lisa Marr - "New York City" - acoustic.
Cub - "New York City" - repeated.

The Cub and Lisa Marr versions can be downloaded from Marr's website.  Much to our cultural detriment it is a shame that her music isn't more widely known.

Comments

[judy]

are you saying kool-ade is fruit flavored smack?

[Joe]

The pictures speak for themselves. I make no such claim.

[Marie]

Lemon Lime is still my favorite.

[tien]

that sign above the door is so pitiful for such an awesome thing.

[isabel]

why is the Kool-Aid Kid dressed as an Austrian yodeler?

[Marty Weil]

Great Kool-Aid ephemera. The poster is outstanding. Nice.

[Joe]

I was wondering the same thing, Isabel.

[coffeennicotine]

I think those are 4-leaf clovers on the kids socks.... Weird uber-aryan/blond leprechaun? Hmmm. Welcome to American advertising in the first half of the 20th century. "Look Herbert, he's not only WHITE....he's BLOND too! We can trust him" "Edna, it's a sign on a wall...."