Rock-A-Dile Red Kool-Aid:
(2/20/06) Rock-A-Dile Red is another oft requested review, this being perhaps the last of the character-based flavors that dared to give the Kool-Aid Man a foil for his freak-ons. It arrived in the early `90s, but because Kool-Aid ages at anything but an accelerated rate, most stores that stocked the flavor weren't quick to pull it from shelves. It wasn't terribly uncommon to still locate packets of Rock-A-Dile Red by the end of the `90s, but these days, it must be considered a far rarer find. Tough luck. Rock-A-Dile was worth the hype, and this particular flavor really represents why I'm bothering to spend my time on a Kool-Aid Section to begin with.
When
Purplesaurus Rex and
Sharkleberry Fin arrived, they each had an advertising blitz that turned them from mere beverage flavors into outright legends. I've become a Kool-Aid nut, but even those who
aren't crazy for Kool-Aid seem to remember those two as if they were drinking it yesterday. So began the oddly short-lived but nevertheless remarkable trend of naming new Kool-Aid flavors after wacky characters, from Great Bluedini to Incrediberry and beyond. Despite Rock-A-Dile Red having every single big-sell bullet point necessary to be a Kool-Aid worthy of statues erected, it seems to be the estranged brother of its character-based brethren. By the time it came out, Kraft was already well into the planning stages of competing with an exploding beverage market that skewed towards offering customers drinks made from "real" exotic fruits. This is what led to the "Island Twists," so if you're a big fan of Pina-Pineapple, thank the many other companies who flooded the market with images of palm trees and kumquat waterfalls. That's neither here nor there. Point is, Rock-A-Dile Red arrived in a period when Kraft was already changing its way of thinking, and despite very clearly being one of the best Kool-Aid flavors there ever was, it wasn't given a substantial amount of company support. I say this because I installed hidden cameras in Kraft's corporate headquarters and spent many junior high weekends having back-alley conversations with traitorous employees.
All this said, there is nothing about Rock-A-Dile Red that doesn't blow my mind. The flavor is named after the new character seen on the packaging -- a hot ass dinosaur who looks suspiciously like a more radioactive version of the Bart Simpson rip-off brother from NBC's
Dinosaurs, only Rock-A-Dile was cooler because he pissed out amazing fruit punch. With pink scales and a saxophone that shot out a berry buffet, Rock-A-Dile was such an infectious personality that even the Kool-Aid Man couldn't keep himself from grabbing an electric guitar and making the blues sound like pop rock. Also important is the fact that of all the "extended universe" Kool-Aid characters, Rock-A-Dile Red was/is the easiest to draw. By far.
As was the case with many character-based Kool-Aid varieties, the actual flavor of Rock-A-Dile Red was never explicitly identified. The package art wasn't a help -- not unless you were prepared to believe that Kraft went through the trouble of making a strawberry/grape/cherry combination, and I
refuse to believe that, because if they
had gone through so much trouble, it's for damn sure that the bastards would've told us about it. More genuinely, Rock-A-Dile Red falls under the more myopic and incalculable category of "red drink." "Red drink" can taste like anything, just so long as that "anything" is red, and
isn't immediately decipherable. Rock-A-Dile Red: Red drink. More on this in a minute.
The powder isn't much to look at when dry -- it's real dull and leaning closer to purple than red. Once it hits water, though...wow. It's the whole cooking-a-lobster effect. The level of this particular red goes beyond Cherry, beyond Incrediberry, beyond any other red Kool-Aid I've experienced. It's blinding. I'm wearing sunglasses.
I don't know if this just happens to be one of the better Kool-Aid pitcher pictures I've taken, but I'm in love, and Rock-A-Dile Red tastes grrreat. If you haven't drank Kool-Aid in a good long while, you probably have a memory of what "Cherry" looked, smelled and tasted like. Only, when you finally
make Cherry Kool-Aid, it's darker and sweeter than you'd remembered. Rock-A-Dile Red is what people who haven't gotten bloated on Kool-Aid in years consider "Cherry." This is an excellent thing. It is the uber red Kool-Aid.
The ratio of sweet to tart is impressively delicate, so much so that I can't find any truth in saying that it's more one of those things than the other. I'm obsessed with Kool-Aid for reasons that have little to do with actually drinking it, but I can totally see blinking through vats of Rock-A-Dile Red with no problem at all. Usually, by the time I'm done taking the pictures and writing the copy for a Kool-Aid review, I'm
done with Kool-Aid for the day. With Rock-A-Dile Red, I find myself rushing through the review so I can go drink more. A true artist might go fill his cup and continue working at a pace than lends itself to merit. I'm not a true artist.
--
Matt
