Remember when you were a kid in the ’80s and they had that Hi-C Ecto-Cooler flavor that was somehow tied in to Ghostbusters? I don’t (we were more of a Squeez-It family anyhow), but if you do miss the Ecto-Cooler, or its subsequent incarnations Shoutin’ Orange Tangergreen and Crazy Citrus Cooler (seriously, these were produced until 2001. How did I miss out on this whole thing??), some Ghostbuster nerds have figured out to make it at home, and kindly made a video to show us luddites how to, uh, stir stuff in a pitcher.
The video, while mildly humorous, goes on about 7 minutes longer than it needs to, so I helpfully transcribed the recipe below. So if any of you actually know what Ecto-Cooler tastes like and decide to make this, let us know how closely it matches your delicious, sugar-filled memories from 1984.
Homemade Ecto-Cooler
- 3/4 cup orange juice (no pulp)
- 3/4 cup tangerine juice
- 1 packet orange Flavor-Aid
- 1 packet tangerine Flavor-Aid
- 1 spoonful Country Time powdered lemonade mix (or 1 packet of lemonade Flavor-Aid? Just throwin’ it out there)
- 1 3/4 cup sugar
- Blue and green food coloring
Stir all ingredients in a gallon jug. Add water to fill the jug. Add food coloring until it’s just the right, unsettling shade of green.
HT: Uproxx
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In the 60’s, when it was named “Hi-C Citrus Cooler,” they served it to my kindergarten class with graham crackers at nap time (nap time!!) and the teachers called it “Spider Cider.”
if u drop a few fresh shit balls in it will make for a
excrement like constancy lol jk i loved this stuff drank it in early ninteys
Bad news- I fear that Orange and Tangerine flavor-aid have been discontinued. I haven’t seen them around me in quite a while.
Splenda has been nicknamed “left sugar” scientists manipulated the C6H12O6 molecules and flipped them 180.
I loved the stuff. Drank so much tings turned that ecto green. Never ate the pies…but, I did drink an oceans worth of the Ecto cooler
Artificial sweeteners in general are bad, was my point XD I know of the dangers of aspartame as well. Sucralose is so heavily processed that the end result is nothing like sugar. I personally think that if someone were to sweeten this by other means, Stevia or Xylitol would be a much healthier choice 🙂
Why does everyone keep saying “For a healthier recipe, use splenda”? Sucralose is an artificial sweetener… It’s not healthy at all 😛
Because splenda comes from sugar and has no calories. Aspartame is a dangerous chemical with bad side effects.
Does anyone remember these little cookie chocolate cake things? They were covered in solid white icing, and where like little mini chocolate cakes, the size of cookies. They were delicious, I remember eating them as a small kid around 1990 before they went away. I’ve never been able to find out what they were.
They are like the inverse for these http://shop.tastykake.com/Images/cakes/large/10-100027.jpg, white icing and chocolate cake.
You need lime green to get the right color. Lime green is about 4 drops yellow and 2 drops green food coloring. To make it, use about
half a box Tropicana tangerine orange, equal parts water and about half a cup splenda. Mix that together well and that should do it.
I loved this so much. It was my favorite drink. I was sick for 3 months when I was a child and my mother would buy this for me as a “treat” while I was recovering. It was a huge disappointment when they stopped making it. 30 years later I still catch myself checking for it in the juice aisle. I hope the recipe works.
someone’s getting their moneys out of the Ren and Stimpy production music cd’s they got for christmas last year!
This will easily give you cancer after the first batch
the food coloring is safe. if you want a safe healthy recipe either use tropicana orange tangerine a little bit of splenda and the food coloring or healthier yet fresh juices. I use my nuetribullet to make fresh juices.
If anyone still follows this and wants to know how to get the right color add 6 drops of yellow food coloring the add green a couple drops at a time until it turns green. it will turn lime green like the real stuff. Stir as you add the green.
Ok, so after making this for the first time tonight i gotta say, its similar but not exact… i dont think anything will ever be as good as Hi-C Ecto cooler but at least i tried… and yeah it was more lime green, i even added blue to it, its like raw sewage. EVen though it doesnt taste like the Hi-C its still amazing in flavor.
In my college cafeteria, there was a combination of juices you mixed that would make your juice look exactly like ecto-cooler. There were a lot of double-takes when you sat down at the table with it.
Did you put the blue food coloring in??
Not to be a debbie downer but the color is all wrong. it was more of a lime green than a sewage green
That is cool and all, but if someone could tell me how to make TMNT taffy that was released coincident to the Secret of the Ooze, I’d be a very happy man.
I remember my sister and I freezing those cartons and then cutting the tops open and scraping it out with a spoon. Good stuff (according to my memories).
I remember it being more fruity, less citrusy (yeah, because that’s a real word). Heads up- don’t use flavor-aid or kool-aid instead of the lemonade mix (go ahead and use an off brand though). You’ll have to add the usual amount of sugar, and then it’s almost sickly sweet… learn from my mistake…
They had that Ghostbusters monster on Hi-C cartons for a long time, even in the nineties when I was a kid. I don’t think they made that flavor anymore. The thing was just on all the cartons for seemingly no reason.
HOLY SH*T! HOLY SH*T! HOLY SH*T!
I cried when they stopped making this…I was 6 though.
I know what I’m doing tomorrow.
I loved Ecto-Cooler! I drank this stuff all the time. I was the biggest Ghostbusters fan ever. Thanks Rachel for reminding me of this childhood classic beverage.
I’m going to try this stuff out! Ghostbusters on the tube, ecto slim, and a green teeth (I bet).
I loved that stuff. It was the only flavor of Hi-C I liked at all. And as obsessed as I was with the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, I HATED those pudding pies. The goo was so nasty!
MMMM!!! Tastes like Slimer jism (redundant?) and sadness.
Invite all your creepy, lonely, Ghostbusters costumers over to your house to share a warm pitcher of this sugar-laced trifecta of citrus. Then confuse the shit out of them by dyeing it the color of bay water.
I dont know how it started but as kids my brother and I use to call this stuff slimmer pee. And from then on hi c was always slimmer pee no matter the color
I remember drinking this color/flavor Hi-C when I was a kid in the 70’s. It was my favorite flavor. I never had it when it became Ecto-cooler, so I don’t know if they changed the “formula”.
I remember Ecto Cooler, but I’m not sure if I ever drank any.
Hostess made pies for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, with green frosting, and I believe the filling was green pudding, too. Nothing to do with Ecto Cooler, but they were willing to put out some pretty funky licensed foodstuffs in the 80’s and 90’s. I wonder if they still do anything like that?