Saturday, August 11th: -Eighty-five years and going strong; KOOL-AID DAYS celebrates this popular beverage. In 1927, Edwin Perkins invented Kool-Aid in Hastings, Nebraska. The six original flavors were strawberry, cherry, lemon-lime, grape, orange and raspberry (Mr. Perkins’ favorite).
Celebrate the day with a cold glass of your favorite flavor of Kool-Aid. Here’s a little Kool-Aid trivia to read while you’re celebrating.
- Initially, Kool-Aid was a seasonal product.
- The original price of Kool-Aid was ten cents a package.
- In 1933, the price of Kool-Aid was cut in half, to five cents a package.
- Kool-Aid soda pop (bottled in franchised plants around the county) was produced until the late 1950s.
- In July 2008, Kent Couch flew 235 miles from Bend, Oregon to Cambridge, Idaho using 150 helium filled balloons strapped to a garden chair. He used gallons of cherry flavored Kool-Aid for ballast. This was Couch’s third garden chair balloon flight.
- Kool-Aid Man has been the Kool-Aid mascot for over 30 years.
- The original spelling of KOOL-AID was Kool-Ade, but the name was soon changed to its popular modern-day spelling
- More than 563 million gallons of KOOL-AID are consumed each year, with more than 225 million gallons in the summer. In other words, 17 gallons of KOOL-AID are consumed every second during the summer season!
- If all the envelopes of KOOL-AID sold in a year were laid end-to-end, they would stretch 58,524 miles, which would wrap around the Earth’s equator twice – or between Los Angeles and New York more than 20 times!
For information on Kool-Aid Days, see http://www.kool-aiddays.com/
A fascinating history on Kool-Aid and its development is here: http://www.kool-aiddays.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=90&Itemid=161
Trisha Faye 