Did you know that Kool-Aid has been around for almost a century? Edwin Perkins created the drink mix in 1927 in his mother's kitchen in Hastings, Nebraska, when he figured out how to dehydrate a liquid concentrate and turn it into a powdered drink. There were six original Kool-Ade flavors - that's right, the original product was called Kool-Ade and changed to Kool-Aid a few years after its creation. The drink was popular during the Great Depression when the unsweetened powdered drink mix was sold as an inexpensive and tasty alternative to carbonated soft drinks.
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In 1953, General Foods (now Kraft Heinz) bought Kool-Aid and started marketing the drink with the Kool-Aid Man, expanding the Kool-Aid product line into things like Kool-Aid Jammers drink pouches and ice cream bars and adding different flavors. If you grew up in the 80s and 90s, you probably remember all the limited-time Kool-Aid Flavors (personal favorite: Great Bluedini).
Over the years, Kool-Aid has offered different lines of flavors like the Kool-Aid Twists. Although Twists aren't available any more, some of those flavors are still around under a different name. If you're lucky, though, you might be able to find your favorite discontinued flavor online (whether or not you want to drink technically expired powdered drink mix is up to you).
Original Kool-Aid Flavors
The original Kool-Aid drink mix came in six flavors: Grape, Orange, Cherry, Root Beer, Lemon Lime, and Raspberry. Strawberry was added next.
Today, Kool-Aid comes in Green Apple, Strawberry Kiwi, Peach Mango, Cherry Limeade, Tropical Punch, Lemonade, Pink Lemonade, Black Cherry, Sharkleberry Fin, and Invisible Grape.
Kool-Aid Twists and Island Twists
Kool-Aid created a whole line of Kool-Aid Twists that mashed up different flavors. You can still find some of these flavors, although they're not marketed under with the Twists label anymore. All the Kool-Aid Twists flavors are Blastin' Berry Cherry, Watermelon-Cherry, Great Blueberry, Swirlin' Strawberry-Starfruit, Shaking Starfruit, Berry Cherry, and Mixed Berry.
You could tell the Island Twists flavor because the Kool-Aid Man wore a kind of island-themed costume on the label. The flavors are Ice Blue Raspberry Lemonade, Kickin' Kiwi-Lime, Oh-Yeah Orange Pineapple, Slammin' Strawberry Kiwi, and Man-O-Mango Berry.
Aguas Frescas
Aguas Frescas is fruit blended with water, so the Kool-Aid flavors in this line are fruit-focused. You can find Pineapple, Jamaica (hibiscus), Pina-Pineapple, Mango, Mandarina, and Mandarina-Tangerine.
Sugar-Free
While you add sugar to the drink mix when you make it, there are some sugar-free Kool-Aid flavors, including Tropical Punch, Cherry, Grape, Lemonade, Pink Lemonade, Watermelon and Summer Punch.
Other Limited Time Kool-Aid Flavors
Over the years, Kool-Aid has done special promotions, seasonal flavors and other limited-time flavors. For Halloween, there could find Ghoul-Aid flavors Scary Blackberry, Scary Black Cherry and Eerie Orange. In 1988, you could find Flintstones-themed packets of Kool-Aid in boxes Post Pebbles Cereals, either Yabba-Dabba-Doo Berry and Bedrock Orange flavor.
Other flavors seem like the same thing under different names: Strawberry Lemonade and Soarin' Strawberry Lemonade, or Berry Blue, Bunch Berry, Blue Berry Blast and Surfin' Berry Punch, or Strawberry Splash, Strawberry Falls Punch and Strawberry Split. You could also choose between Rainbow Punch, Mountainberry Punch and Sunshine Punch.
Then there were flavors that were just fun, even if you were never quite sure what they were supposed to be, like Purplesaurus Rex, Rock-a-Dile Red, Pink Swimmingo, Incrediberry and Great Bluedini (which changed colors as you mixed it).
Other Kool-Aid flavors you might miss (unless you can find them online) are Ice Blue Raspberry Lemonade, Watermelon, Triple Awesome Grape, Grape Blackberry, Double Double Cherry, Lime, Lemonade Sparkle, Strawberry Raspberry, Arctic Green Apple, Lemon Ice, Grape Tang, Solar Strawberry-Starfruit and Candy Apple.
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