26 October, 2011
Ecto Cooler
If there’s something strange in your neighborhood. Who ya gonna call? Ghostbusters!
If you were a child of the late 80’s/early 90’s as we were, you should instantly recall those lyrics. And if you can recall those lyrics, chances are good you might also remember the Hi-C Drink product tie in, Ecto Cooler.
Ecto-Cooler was an overly sweet orange flavored drink produced by Minute Maid and was a promotion associated with the cartoon series The Real Ghostbusters. The box featured the character Slimer, a ghost who in the movie slimed Dr. Peter Venkman (played by Bill Murray) with ectoplasm. Seeing as how Halloween is next week, Rachel and I thought it would be fun to try out a home made version of Ecto Cooler.
I was a huge fan of the Ghostbusters movies and cartoon, and the proud owner of multiple action figures, proton packs, and even Ghostbusters flannel sheets. As a child, this drink was always in my lunchbox.
Ecto Cooler was originally released in 1987 to help promote the animated series The Real Ghostbusters, but was discontinued in 2001. It survived under the repackaged name Shoutin’ Orange Tangergreen and then as Crazy Citrus Cooler, but since 2007 no version of Ecto Cooler has been sold in stores at all. So if you want it, you need to make it yourself.
The drink itself is very sugary and sweet, and has a supernatural neon green color to it-just like the ghost, Slimer. It’s been so long since I had Ecto-Cooler that I personally can’t attest to how faithful this recreation is to the original drink. But from the reviews I’ve read, this recipe sounds to be pretty close to the real thing and a real blast from the past. It certainly tastes like something I would have enjoyed as a kid.
Recipe: Ecto Cooler
Ingredients
- 1 Packet Kool Aid/Flavor Aid Orange
- 1 Packet Kool Aid/Flavor Aid Tangerine
- 3/4 Cup Orange Juice (No Pulp)
- 3/4 Cup Tangerine Juice or 1 can mashed Mandarin Oranges with juices
- 1 teaspoon Countrytime Lemonade (Regular)
- 1 1/2 Cups Sugar (we just put 1 cup. It was sweet enough)
- Green and yellow food coloring for color.
Directions
- In a 1 gallon pitcher, combine all ingredients.
- Fill remainder of container with water.
- Stir and add food coloring, if desired.
Recipe from: Ghostbusters Chicago Division
12 thoughts
omg. This is hysterical. My 9 yo son saw me reading this and said, “What’s Hi-C?” 🙂
Hahah. Does he know who the Ghostbusters are?
Wow, what a weird drink! I’m sure my kids would love it for Halloween, I’ll show it to them!
yes, he did ’cause I had realized only recently that he had never seen it and had added it to my Netflix cue 🙂
Thank you so much for posting this recipe. I watched the video on YouTube but the color just didn’t look correct but green and yellow food coloring make more sense! Thank you so much, I am having an 80’s themed birthday party and want to serve this!
Fun! It was a challenge to get the color right- very easy to over color and end up with a lovely forest green- no good! Good luck and have fun!
so what IS the correct color combination? how many drops of which?
I wish I had taken better note- it ended up being a long trial and error process in which the count got lost in the process. All I remember was that it needed to be watered down to get the green to look more green than black… Not helpful, I know!
well sadly we tried the recipe, and it didn’t come out right. It tasted very watery, and the flavor was just …not right. It might have been the tangerine juice; the only one we could find was one from Dole that was 10% juice.
Also, we tried the combination of yellow and green colorings…didn’t work 🙁
How terrible! Sorry it didn’t work out- I can’t say we make it regularly enough to even offer any constructive feedback. Bummer.
I can’t seem to find tangerine juice or tangerine Kool-Aid anywhere in stores near me. Any ideas? I suppose I could just make my own juice but what about the Kool-Aid? It’s such an elusive flavor to track down.
Hi Eddy. Thanks for your comment and glad to hear you are going to try it out. Finding the Kool-Aid was a real pain in the butt. I checked a couple different stores near me and ended up getting it at a Stop & Shop 15 minutes from my house (I was really motivated). It really is hard to track down… Good luck and let me know what you think of it if you manage to make the Ecto Cooler!