The Time Capsule: Tracing Kool-Aid back to its Iowa roots

 I called Smucker’s the other day, which reminded me of the time I did likewise with another mega-company; Kraft Foods. The Kraft experience was a good one, and I don’t think it’s been told here.  

In the town of Lewis, a few miles to our north, local folklore claims the place to be the birthplace of Kool-Aid. As a boy I remember a lady adding a few cups of nourishing sugar and packets of equally healthful Kool-Aid to a cooler of ice water, reminding us we were melting the enamel on our teeth with a product invented in Lewis.  

Years later, I visited the Kool-Aid museum in Hastings, Neb., which honors a native son named Edward Perkins. Perkins is credited with originating Fruit Smack, which became Kool-Aid, and he never lived anywhere near Lewis.   

The Lewis story apparently wasn’t true, so why did so many old-timers believe it? As far as I could determine, they believed because their parents or grandparents told them the drink was invented by a local druggist—and insisted this was true.   

Curious, I emailed Kraft Foods, which bought Kool-Aid a number of years ago.  Surprisingly, their public relations department responded. After a couple of exchanges I made the phone call and spoke with a most accommodating lady who, through her work with the public relations department, said she’d become the unofficial Kraft historian.  

She said Kraft had acquired many of Perkins’ original business papers and, with a little reading between the lines, this is the story as she saw it: In Lewis in the early 19-teens was a druggist who experimented with fountain drinks. He concocted a combination of flavored concentrates mixed with carbonated water, called it Kool-Ade and sold it at his soda fountain. Thinking there to be potential, he applied for a patent.  

Perkins, who became an inventor while still a teen, married in 1918. He got serious at that point, creating and marketing Nix-O-Tine, a stop-smoking aid. He also made Fruit Smack, a syrup concentrate in various flavors that was mixed with ordinary tap water. Fruit-Smack was not a big seller, in part because bottles of concentrate were expensive to ship and messy when broken. Fascinated with Jell-O, Perkins set out to find a way to dehydrate his Fruit Smack. In 1927 he succeeded, decided to market the new product under the name Kool-Ade, and applied for a patent. The name, he learned, was already taken.  

According to the Kraft historian, it appears Perkins went to Lewis and made the druggist an offer. The carbonated fountain drink had not caught on, and rights to the name were sold for an undisclosed amount.  

Whatever Perkins paid, and it probably wasn’t much, he could have saved his money.  Not long thereafter the Federal Food and Drug Administration served him notice. The term “Ade” was reserved for products that actually contained a minimal amount of fruit juice.  Kool-Ade had none.

Perkins was not about to raise his standards, so avoided the problem by changing the name to Kool-Aid, which he could have done without a trip to Lewis.  

Kraft had been most helpful. What about Smucker’s? The name may sound like a mom ‘n pop jelly operation, but they own Jiff, Dunkin’ Donuts, Eagle Brand, Pillsbury, Hungry Jack, Crisco, Pet, Carnation, Folgers and much more. It was Folgers I wanted to talk about, and we’ll have the rest of the story later.  

Roy Marshall is a local historian and columnist for the Red Oak Express. He can be contacted at news@redoakexpress.com.