Kool-Aid is a high-sugar fruit-flavored drink made by Kraft Foods, Inc It is distributed as a powder to be mixed with water.
Originally, Kool-Aid was made as a liquid concentrate and was called Fruit-Smack. To reduce shipping costs, in 1927 Edwin Perkins discovered a way to remove the liquid from Fruit-Smack leaving only a powder. This powder was then renamed "Kool-Ade".
Kool-Aid can be used to dye fabric and hair.
It is also available in an artificially-sweetened, non-sugar version.
In 1978, 900 followers of cult leader Jim Jones committed suicide by drinking a grape-flavored drink laced with cyanide at their commune in Jonestown, Guyana. This drink is often said to have been Kool-Aid, and this popular misconception is so widespread that to "drink (someone's) Kool-Aid", to be a Kool-Aid drinker, has acquired the meaning of having been utterly deceived by someone to the point of destruction. In fact, the drink at Jonestown was Flavor-aid a cheaper imitation of Kool-Aid.
