Slurpee turns 40

KANSAS CITY, Mo. Pop quiz of the day: Name three things native to Kansas.

Let's see, there's wheat. Sunflowers, for sure.

And Slurpees.

Bet they didn't teach you that in school.

The frozen concoction sold all over the world turns 40 this month and you can trace the brain freeze all the way back to the Sunflower State.

But it wasn't always called Slurpee. And it's even older than 40.

In the late 1950s Omar Knedlik bought a Dairy Queen in Coffeyville, Kan., about 170 miles south of Kansas City at the Oklahoma border. It was an old store with old equipment, and when he couldn't get the fountain dispenser to work, he hatched a make-do plan.

He bought bottles of soda they were glass in those days and tucked them into a deep freezer to cool, careful that they didn't explode. Alas, when Knedlik popped their caps and handed the sodas to customers, some had turned to slush.

You can probably guess the rest.

"He had customers that came back and said, Hey, give me some of those pops that were in a little bit longer,' says Omar's son, Ron Knedlik, 57, a retired mechanical engineer who lives in Iola, Kan.

Knedlik's dad recognized a good thing when he saw it. A poor farm boy born and raised near Barnes, Kan., Omar Knedlik was a World War II veteran who bought his first ice cream shop after the war. He owned several before moving to Coffeyville.

"He had a way of telling when things were going to be good ideas and when they weren't. It's kind of remarkable, says Ron Knedlik, whose father, known as a tinkerer, also invented a machine that tilted industrial size jugs of soda syrup for easy pouring.

"It took a huge sacrifice for my mom and dad to do this. We weren't very wealthy at all. But he decided that was something he needed to do. He was tenacious.

For starters, Omar Knedlik had to invent a machine to make the frozen drink. Repairing the Dairy Queen's old machinery had taught him the ways of refrigeration, so he revised the method that turns syrup, water and carbon dioxide into pop.

He came up with a stainless steel barrel, about 5 inches in diameter and a little over 2 feet tall, with freezing coils wrapped around it.

He described it this way to his hometown newspaper: "A pre-mix of most any flavor is placed inside the machine. There it is put under pressure. Any liquid increases in density when pressurized. Release of the pressure causes it to freeze. So when the liquid pours from the machine it freezes as it hits the cup.

Five years of tinkering in the Dairy Queen's back room paid off. Omar Knedlik named the new drink "Fizz and advertised it as "the coldest drink in town. Root beer was the first flavor. "I drank a truckload of those things, says Ron Knedlik, who worked for his dad.

"They were really cold on a hot day. They really would cool you off. It was like a snow cone, only a much, much finer texture. And it was carbonated. And because it was carbonated, it had a little bite, as they say. So you had all those sensations that made it a lot of fun.

Omar Knedlik had to change the drink's name when cereal giant Kellogg said it was too much like its Fizzies, effervescent tablets that turned water into a flavored carbonated drink. He didn't take kindly to the cease-and-desist order. "And of course, being the way he was, the first thing he did was call it Ziff and probably some other things that I don't remember, says Ron Knedlik.

But Omar Knedlik had a name-that-treat contest, his son recalls, and one customer came up with the name Icee ice with an extra "e. Then Knedlik began thinking big time. He knew he couldn't launch a product by himself. He hooked up with a Dallas company, John E. Mitchell Co., to make the machine and spent several years working with the company's engineers.

The company's first Icee machines sold in 1960 for $3,000 each. Sales crawled until the mid-60s when Mitchell made the machines smaller and began leasing them. Suddenly Icee machines began popping up in convenience and grocery stores nationwide.

In 1965, 7-Eleven stores bought some of the machines and called its version a Slurpee, after the sound of the drink being sucked through a straw. In its written history, 7 Eleven credits Omar Knedlik as the inventor.

He and his family received royalty checks for about 17 years until his patent expired. But Omar Knedlik never got rich from it. "Certainly not in today's dollars, says his son, who says his parents continued to live in their modest Coffeyville home even after Icees first and then Slurpees became a nationwide sensation.

His father and mother moved from Coffeyville to Joplin, Mo., in 1983 when Omar Knedlik developed kidney problems and needed dialysis. He died at 73 in 1989.

Ron Knedlik said his father was "immensely proud to see Icees and Slurpees storm the country.

You can enjoy an Icee at the Wal-Mart in Coffeyville, where it all started.

But, alas, you won't find a Slurpee. There are no 7 Elevens in town.

Cherry Slush No. 1 Makes one 32-ounce drink or two 16-ounce drinks

2 cups cold club soda

1/2 cup granulated sugar

1/4 teaspoon plus 1/8 teaspoon cherry flavored unsweetened powdered drink mix

1/2 teaspoon cherry extract

2 1/2 cups crushed ice

Pour 1 cup of club soda into a blender. Add sugar, powdered drink mix and cherry extract. Blend until sugar is dissolved.

Add crushed ice and blend on high speed until the drink is a slushy, smooth consistency, with no remaining chunks of ice.

Add the remaining club soda and blend briefly until mixed. You may have to stop the blender and use a long spoon to stir up the contents.

If necessary, put the blender bowl into your freezer for a half-hour. This will help it thicken. After the half-hour, remove blender from freezer and, again, blend briefly to mix.

Source: www.recipestogo.com/bev/bev35.html.

Cherry Slush No. 2 Makes 3-4 servings

2 cups club soda, chilled

1/2 cup sugar

1/2 teaspoon cherry flavored powdered drink mix

1/2 teaspoon maraschino cherry juice

2 1/2 cups crushed ice

Combine 1 cup club soda, sugar, cherry powder and cherry juice in a blender until mixed.

Add the crushed ice and process until blended smooth.

Pour cherry mixture into a pitcher and add the remaining club soda. Stir just to mix, then pour into glasses.

Source: www.recipezaar.com/97773.

Archive ID: 2553804