When you have been on the market as long as Kool-Aid, you’re bound to have rolled out
a lot of flavors.
Some of those flavors latch onto the taste buds of the consumer and refuse to let go,
which ensures a permanent place on the shelves in supermarkets.
Others, however, were not that fortunate and soon disappeared.
We’re digging deep for those lost relics to unearth the 20 Kool-aid flavors you won’t
believe exist.
Eerie Orange Kool-Aid
Eerie Orange was one of those products that only a few consumers had access to.
In this case, it was released only in the Canadian market in 1996.
To be fair, it wasn’t a new flavor or anything.
It was just a repackaging of an existing flavor.
And if you’re wondering as for the reason for this subterfuge, you need only look at
the name for a clue.
It was Halloween season and kids needed something spooky for some serious trick and treating.
And because of its ephemeral nature, Eerie Orange soon vanished into the night never
to be heard from again.
Sometimes we stay up at night thinking of Eerie Orange and what could have been if it
just had managed to survive that fateful Halloween.
Pink Swimmingo Kool-Aid
When you have a name like Pink Swimmingo, it doesn’t matter what flavor or taste you
carry inside the packet.
The name alone brings joy to the drinker.
But Pink Swimmingo packs a joyous flavor as well.
It tastes like cherry watermelon, and the bright cheerful color will make your heart
dance.
That is, if you can get your hands on a box of the colorful drink.
Sadly the pink one was available to children in the 90s and didn’t last long enough to
see the glorious new century we live in.
But take heart.
If you can’t have Pink Swimmingo, the cherry watermelon flavor is still sold today.
Not under the same name though.
Swirlin’ Strawberry-Starfruit Kool-Aid
When you have a cool name like Swirlin’ Strawberry-Starfruit then the flavors in the
packets are supposed to explode on your tongue.
Between rainbows and fireworks, your mouth will have a part of it.
Unfortunately, the combination of strawberry and star fruit couldn’t quite cut it with
the thirsty customers.
And after a brief limited release, it was pulled off the shelves.
These days you need to scour eBay to find a box of the rare flavor.
Great Blue-dini Kool-Aid
The one thing really going for this Kool-Aid flavor is the fact that it’s unsweetened.
So if you’re worried about your children’s daily sugar intake this one will put your
mind at ease.
But other than that, there’s nothing exceptional about it.
The citric base and artificial flavors don’t distinguish this product in any way.
The color though is a different story.
When you mix the contents of the packet with water, the color will change.
You get a combination of yellow and blue which for some reason doesn’t turn into green
as one would expect.
The new color is perhaps why anyone would want to try this flavor.
Incrediberry Kool-Aid
This was Kool-Aid’s take on comic books and superheroes of the time.
It made its first appearance in the early 90s and featured Kool-Aid Man dressed as a
superhero, looking jacked.
And if the name didn’t tip you off, this packet was all about berries.
You can see a blob next to Kool-Aid Man that represents some sort of a berry.
That berry dwarfs Kool-Aid Man which implies that the berry flavors are strong in this
one.
You’d need to add sugar and water to get those flavors out in the open though.
It was also strong on vitamin C, so that’s something else going for it.
Unfortunately, neither of those things saved the product from an untimely demise.
Oh-Yeah Orange-Pineapple Kool-Aid
Another relic from the 1990s.
Which makes one almost envious of the kids who grew up in that era.
Or maybe they were not easy to satisfy which would explain all the new flavors Kool-Aid
had to roll out and test.
Now you’re supposed to shout “Oh Yea!
Orange Pineapple!” when you took the first sip of the drink.
At least that’s what the jovial name suggests.
But we’re not really sure that orange and pineapple go together.
Which everybody seemed to agree on back then.
So naturally, the new flavor didn’t last long on the shelves and soon disappeared from
the market.
Purplesaurus Rex Kool-Aid
When Kool-Aid saw that dinosaurs were big among kids in the 80s, this was their response.
The flavors here are grape and lemonade.
Hardly Jurassic, but what you lack in authenticity, you can make up for in design.
There’s a purple dinosaur eating grapes on the packet which should tell you all you
need to know.
To be fair, grape has never been the kind of flavor that drew new customers or appealed
to old ones either.
And as soon as the Jurassic era was replaced with the next big thing culturally speaking,
Purplesaurus Rex went extinct.
Strawberry Falls Punch Kool-Aid
Like grapes, strawberry is one of those fruits whose natural taste has little to do with
the juice that food companies manage to squeeze out of it.
Sometimes, strawberry on its own is not the best of flavors.
But maybe the 80s was a time of experimentation at Kool-Aid or the era was just welcoming
and people were open to trying anything new.
Who knows.
One thing is for sure, though.
Strawberry Falls Punch couldn’t deliver and was soon part of the company’s history
that nobody liked to talk about.
Rock-a-Dile Red Kool-Aid
Another flavor that was more about the mascot on the package than about a new and explosive
flavor inside it.
It’s like when a company tries to cash in on a fad and when the fad fades into obscurity,
the company pulls the product and hopes everyone will forget about it soon.
Rock-a-Dile Red is about a couple of mascots that were supposed to be sidekicks to the
main character Kool-Aid Man.
The sidekicks were flashy but didn’t have the drawing power of the dashing superstar.
The red in the name however referred to the berries, grapes, and cherries that came together
to create a cool flavor.
Tamarindo Kool-Aid
One thing about Kool-Aid is that it’s more than just a fruity drink.
You can just about do anything you like with that small packet of powder.
I mean, people dye their hair with the bright hues of Kool-Aid.
Which probably explains why this specific flavor is quite popular.
Not to make a pitcher of a cold fruit juice, but rather to make a dessert.
If you like to make snow cones, Tamarindo will make the perfect syrup for your dessert.
But that doesn’t mean that some customers don’t prefer it as a juice.
It’s still popular and people rave about the green color and the exquisite flavor.
Surfin’ Berry Punch Kool-Aid
The last time Surfin’ Berry Punch was seen cresting that high wave was in the early 1990s.
It was in 1987 when the not-so-famous surfer made its debut.
Almost immediately it climbed the steep pinnacles of success.
Maybe it was the flavor of wild berries that swept people off their feet and splashed their
faces with the cool spray of the ocean.
Or maybe it was something else.
What is known is that by the end of the year, Surfin’ Berry Punch was no longer the favorite
flavor that Kool-Aid fans were raving about.
Even the purple powder that turned red once it hit the water had failed to capture a permanent
place in people’s hearts.
Arctic Green Apple Kool-Aid
This one was so popular that when it disappeared from the market, people launched many campaigns
to bring it back.
Which is not so uncommon among food products that for some reason or another get discontinued.
And even for years after the product was no longer available in stores, you could still
buy it online.
This has to do with the long shelf-life of Kool-Aid.
Anyone who has a few boxes of the product will store them and wait for the price to
go up once they become rare.
And reading the online reviews and how people missed the flavor, makes one question the
logic behind Kraft pulling the popular flavor off the market.
Man-o-Mangoberry Kool-Aid
People feel so strongly about this one that there are Facebook campaigns to bring it back.
Sadly the only place you can find it now is on eBay.
Rare boxes of Man-o-Mangoberry sell for top dollar.
Now it’s not clear if those who buy them would drink them or not.
Most likely they’re collectibles and even after the powder has expired, its proud owners
would still display it as one of their most valuable possessions.
Rainbow Punch Kool-Aid
A popular flavor from the mid-80s.
In fact, this one is so popular these days it’s not hard to find a package on eBay.
It belongs to the “Punch” family of Kool-Aid and collectors fancy these flavors.
And it’s not just the flavors of the family that still bring a strong tone of nostalgia
whenever the name is mentioned.
The design of the packages is also a throwback to an era before digital media and Photoshop
took over.
It’s probably the same reason early editions of comic books fetch high prices among collectors.
But whatever the motivation behind their popularity, if you can get your hands on this popular
flavor, treasure it.
Solar Strawberry-Starfruit Kool-Aid
See that star fruit on the package?
It’s the star of the show.
The theme of this flavor is space travel and it has a futuristic design about it that makes
it a favorite among fans.
It’s not clear how much the star fruit added to the taste here.
But we’re guessing it didn’t go well with strawberry.
In either case, it only made a brief appearance before it was blasted off to the archives.
Not many people remember it today and there are no campaigns to bring it back.
Yet fans of Kool-Aid and its short-lived products collect this one like baseball cards in bygone
times.
Golden Nectar Kool-Aid
As soon as you see the word nectar on the package you know this must be a unique flavor.
It’s not clear what went into this one anyway.
It dates back to the 1950s.
So as far as the oldie but goodie is concerned this one takes the cake.
Just look at the design here and the excited children running to have a taste.
Takes you back to a simpler time when stick figures were all the graphic design you needed
to sell your product.
Scary Black Cherry & Scary Blackberry Kool-Aid
It seems that every Halloween, Kool-Aid would dish out a limited edition of a scary flavor
that’s actually a repackaging of an already existing flavor.
But it seemed to sell well and the customers didn’t mind.
And there was something about black cherry that made it appeal to both children and grownups
around this time of year.
Of course, these flavors are still around under different names.
But how exactly did they taste back then is anyone’s guess.
I don’t think that even getting one on eBay would help solve this mystery.
It’s way past its expiration date anyway.
Jamaica Kool-Aid
Hibiscus is a vibrant flower.
It has a tangy taste that is easy to distinguish.
But the bright color it produces when you mix it with water makes Jamaica one of the
most sought after flavors.
As we mentioned before you can do a lot with the right packet of Kool-Aid.
And this one is one of the most versatile packets you can get your hands on.
It’s even advertised as a product that you can use for just about anything you can think
of.
That bright red color is just as good in coloring food as it is in creating the right highlights
in your hair.
Sharkleberry Fin Kool-Aid
We’re not really sure what is going on here.
Is that a shark?
And is the pitcher riding the shark?
We know there are berries in there somewhere but what’s with the fin?
So many questions and so few answers.
Yet this classic flavor has been around for decades.
It must be doing something right because people it seems can’t get enough of those berries.
As for the design which has remained basically the same since its inception, it just implies
that the flavor will give you the same sensations as riding a shark in the open ocean.
Which at some point was probably the pinnacle of adventure.
Not that we’re judging or anything.
Root Beer Kool-Aid
People say you can’t go wrong with root beer.
Most people would agree with that statement except those with a dislike of this popular
soda flavor.
The key word there is soda.
A nice mug of frosted root beer or a root beer ice cream float all sound delicious and
refreshing.
However the first thing to come to mind when talking about root beer is definitely not
Kool-aid.
Well at one time back in the 1970s Kool-Aid thought a root beer flavor would be good idea.
That fad seemed to pass as the product didn’t last too long.
I guess people realized that if they wanted the taste of root beer, they wanted the bubbles
to go with it and Kool-aid does not deliver on the bubble front.
This sounds more like a soda that’s just gone flat.
The one thing that this flavor did have going for it was the ability to make homemade root
beer popsicles.
Now that sounds like it could be a pretty cool Kool-aid treat.
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