Don’t blame the weather man when the hot summer sun sizzles. You can stay cool as a mountain pool. Relax and refresh with thirst quenching Kool-Aid. For the whole family, pour tall, sparkling drinks from the big pitcher you keep handy in your refrigerator.
There’s plenty to go around. A 5 cent package of Kool-Aid makes 2 full quarts of cooling, soothing refreshment.
Six delicious, zestful flavors offer delightful variety to please everyone. Laugh at the weather man. He’s off the beam.
You feel it’s 20 degrees cooler than he says. Kool-Aid tells you so.
Kool-Aid Frozen Desserts
A truly delicious dessert at a real saving!
1 Package Kool-Aid any flavor
1 cup heavy cream
2 cups milk
1 cup sugar.
Dissolve Kool-Aid and sugar in milk, turn into freezing tray and freeze 1/2 to 1 hour (until slushy) Whip cream (well chilled) until stiff. Add partly frozen Kool-Aid mixture to whipped cream and whip just enough to mix well, but keep as cold as possible. Return quickly to freezing tray and freeze at coldest point. Requires no more stirring. When frozen, set control back to normal. Makes
over 1 quart. If desired, beat 2 egg whites fluffy with 2 tablespoons sugar and fold into above mixture before final freezing.
Fruit Extender for Punch
Entertaining costs less with Kool-Aid. You’ll be amazed at how far Kool-Aid stretches expensive fruits. You’ll be delighted with the zest Kool-Aid adds to punch. Use half as much fruit as normally. Add, instead, just enough Kool-Aid to impart the fresh, tangy flavor you enjoy…use any of the Kool-Aid flavors or blend them. Regal refreshment!
Uses for Kool-Aid
Kool-Aid can be used for more than just a sweet summer drink for kids. The colors are vibrant and it has a powerful taste, making it a great way to dye and flavor fun things. How about Kool-Aid Taffy?
Here’s a few more ideas:
Kool-Aid Play Dough
1 1/4 cups flour
1/4 cup salt
1 packet unsweetened Kool-Aid drink mix
1 tablespoon cream of tartar
1 cup boiling water
1 1/2 tablespoons oil
wax or parchment paper
airtight containers
Mix first four ingredients in a large bowl. Add boiling water and oil; stir with fork until cooled, then mix with hands until well-combined. Place on wax paper; knead until no longer sticky, adding additional flour 1 teaspoon at a time until desired consistency. Store in refrigerator.
Edible Finger Paint
1 14-ounce can sweetened condensed milk
4 tablespoons cornstarch
1 packet Kool-Aid drink mix
Pour sweetened condensed milk into a medium saucepan. Stir in cornstarch. Cook on medium-low heat until well-combined. Add Kool-Aid drink mix and stir well. Remove from heat and let cool before playing and painting.
Homemade Dishwasher Detergent
1 cup Arm and Hammer Washing Soda (not the same as baking soda)
1 cup Borax
1/2 cup Kosher or coarse salt
4 packages unsweetened Kool-Aid drink mix, lemonade flavor (DO NOT use any other flavor)
Combine all ingredients in a jar or plastic container with a lid. Place lid on container and shake several times to mix ingredients thoroughly. Use 1 tablespoon per load. If load is heavily soiled, use 2 tablespoons. Yields up to 40 loads.
Homemade Lip Gloss
1 tub petroleum jelly (Vaseline)
1 package of Kool-aid drink mix, any flavor
Put about 1 cup Vaseline in a microwave-safe bowl. Heat in the microwave in 30-second increments, stirring between each heating, for seven minutes or until fully melted. Wear oven mitts to remove bowl from microwave. Stir in Kool-Aid drink mix. Stir until the crystals are completely dissolved. Pour into your empty lip gloss containers and allow to solidify for two hours.
Kool-Aid Cookies
1 16-ounce package unsweetened Kool-Aid drink mix
1 2/3 cups sugar
1 1/4 cups softened butter
2 large eggs
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
3 cups flour
1/2 cup sugar for rolling
Preheat oven to 325 F. Cream butter, sugar and Kool-Aid. Add eggs, one at a time. Mix well. Combine flour, salt and soda, then add to mixture. Roll dough into 1-inch balls. Roll dough balls in sugar. Place cookies 2 inches apart on an ungreased cookie sheet. Bake at 325 F for 10-12 minutes or until the edges begin to brown slightly. Transfer to wire rack to cool.
Kool-Aid Yogurt or Fruit Dip
2 tablespoons Kool-Aid sugar-sweetened soft drink mix, any flavor
1 cup vanilla yogurt
Stir soft drink mix into yogurt in small bowl. Refrigerate 1 hour or until ready to serve. Stir.
Kool-Aid Playdough II
2-1/2 cups flour
1/2 cup salt
2 packs unsweetened Kool-aid
2 cups boiling water
3 tbsp. vegetable oil
Mix dry ingredients. Add water and oil, stir. Mix or knead with hands when cool. Store in Ziploc bag or container with lid. Lasts for several months.
Kool-Aid Popcorn
2 cups sugar
1 cup light corn syrup
2/3 cup butter
2 packets Kool Aid (any flavor)
1 teaspoon baking soda
6 quarts plain popcorn (about 4 large bags worth)
Preheat the oven to 225 degrees. Pop all four bags of plain popcorn, and place in a really large heat resistant bowl. In a small bowl, combine 2 packets Kool-Aid and 1 teaspoon baking soda. Set aside. In a medium saucepan combine sugar, corn syrup and butter. Bring to a boil. Let boil for three minutes stirring constantly, then remove from heat. Pour in Kool-Aid and baking soda mixture to saucepan and stir in carefully. It will expand a bit from the baking soda so be careful not to get burned. Once it is mixed in well, pour immediately over the popped popcorn in your large container. Stir well until evenly coated. Place popcorn in oven for 10 minutes on bottom rack. Remove and stir well again. Repeat the 10 minutes in oven and stirring 2 more times for a total of 30 minutes and remove from pot to cool on parchment paper.
Easter egg dye:
Add one packet of Kool-Aid to 2/3 cup of water and stir. Dip eggs into “dye”. Let soak. Remove.
History of Kool-Aid
Back in the year 1900, in the little southwest Nebraska village of Hendley (pop.100). a lad of 11, just moved from farm to town, read an advertisement which fired his imagination. The ad urged: “Be a manufacturer–Mixer’s Guide tells how–write today.” The boy’s mother soon found her kitchen utensils scented up with perfumes, flavoring extracts, medicines and other mysterious concoctions of a juvenile experimental laboratory.
But success as a manufacturer may not come quickly to a small-town boy in his early teens. Such ambitions must compete with school and clerking in father’s general store; and it takes a little capital, one finds, to launch a “big city” enterprise, even in a country town.
So a practical decision prompted a reply to another advertisement, reading: “Start a Print shop in Your Own Home–Make Money.” A few hard-saved dollars brought a small hand press and a few fonts of type. These were housed in a loft adjoining grandfather’s livery stable. The press was mounted on a dry goods box from father’s store. This proved a good investment, there being no
printing office in the village. Spare time printing after school, and after the store closed and the sweeping was done about midnight, provided personal funds for carrying on the “manufacturing” experiments.
Eventually the printing and “mixing” interests were combined by launching of a “mail order business,” the stock trade being the making of small bottles of perfume and the printing of calling cards, which were advertised in magazines in a small way and sold through boy and girl agents with a premium as the reward. The printing press supplied the labels, premium catalogs and
other printed supplies. This was a first attempt at a national manufacturing business. An unsympathetic townsman termed it the “dry goods box factory.”
This mail order experience led to the development and sale by direct mail of a household remedy, which did a fair business throughout the country for several years. It marked the first real progress toward fulfillment of the “Mixer’s Guide” dreams of the youth of 11, after some years and several unfruitful experiments.
In 1920 the Perkins Products Company was moved to Hastings, Nebraska, where the remedy business was gradually expanded to include the manufacture of some 125 items of flavorings, spices, toilet preparations, medicines and household products. These were sold nationally, but in modest volume.
Included in this line was a soft drink concentrate, which proved a most popular seller. In 1921 this product was improved, packaged in an envelope, and named KOOL-AID, for exclusive sale to the wholesale and retail store trade. Acceptance was immediately favorable. Progress was so rapid that by January of 1931, in order to provide adequate facilities for supplies and nation-wide
distribution, the business was moved from Nebraska to Chicago. The mail order line was discontinued to give full time and attention to KOOL-AID and the wholesale trade.
In 1934 the growth of KOOL-AID necessitated remodeling of our Chicago factory in the Clearing Industrial District to nearly three times its former size. By 1939 increased KOOL-AID volume demanded our moving into new quarters, again doubling our floor space.
Now, in 1949, the constantly growing market for KOOL-AID in every state has compelled us to again double our manufacturing and office space; and the entire Perkins organization takes pride and pleasure in escorting you through our new, modern, air-conditioned KOOL-AID plant, by means of these illustrated pages.
Yes. several years and an ocean of KOOL-AID have “flowed under the bridge” since E. E. Perkins, at the age 11, answered the “Mixer’s Guide” advertisement quoted in the first paragraph of this article. –1950, Perkins Products Co.
