Perspective: Color Me Thirsty

Kool-Aid's always boasted of a slew of flavors—but taste has never really been the point

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Most shoppers have never heard of Edwin Perkins, nor the dubious assortment of potions and elixirs—including a purported smoking cure called Nix-O-Tine—that he sold via his mail-order company in Nebraska a century ago. Perkins never became the chemist he fancied himself, but he was a hell of a good marketer. In 1917, he introduced something called Fruit Smack, a flavored drink concentrate that—in order to save shipping charges—he reintroduced as a powder mix in 1927.

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