Alright so yesterday morning I’m chuggin’ some orange Gatorade after my run, right? And suddenly it hits me – what color was the very first one ever made? Like, before they had all these crazy flavors? Weird thing to wonder but I gotta know. Here’s exactly what I did step by step.
The Hopeless Google Phase
First I just typed “first Gatorade color” straight into Google. Total mess. Pages about color theory, sports science junk, even a recipe for homemade dyed drinks. Useless. Then I tried “original Gatorade color” and got flooded with ads for new flavors. Super annoying. Clicked like 15 links, all dead ends or people arguing in forums. Wasted a whole hour.
Changing Tactics Like An Archaeologist
So I’m thinkin’… maybe gotta hunt for physical proof? Started searching for “vintage Gatorade bottle” images. Scrolled through mountains of eBay listings and old ads. Saw tons of 70s/80s stuff but nothing original. Then remembered Florida roots – Gatorade came from University of Florida scientists! Dug into their athletics history pages. Took forever finding the right section but BAM: photo from 1965 showing the team holdin’ these plain glass bottles with yellowish liquid.
- Got super excited – is it lemon-lime?
- Nope. Description said it looked like “weak pee” honestly
- Kept scrolling campus archives… dusty digital papers everywhere
Eureka In Some Old Report
Found this scanned PDF labeled “1965 Lab Notes” buried deep. Scientist dude wrote about the first batch tasting awful. Then it clicked. They weren’t thinkin’ about color at all! Just needed somethin’ to hydrate players fast. The yellowish tint? Came straight from the lab ingredients mixing. No dye added, no fancy flavor. It wasn’t designed to be yellow – it just was. Felt like finding dinosaur bones in your backyard.
Why Everyone Gets It Wrong
Turns out when they actually bottled it for stores later (late 60s), they marketed it as lemon-lime. That version was properly dyed greenish-yellow. But the real original stuff? Totally different. Plain, weird-looking lab juice. Surprise ending: technically the first color wasn’t even a color they picked. Just science sludge! I almost yelled in the library. Whole hunt took me like 4 hours including coffee breaks. Trust me – it took a while.
Anyway now I’m weirdly proud knowin’ this useless trivia. Tell ya what though – next time someone asks about original Gatorade flavors, I’ll smack ’em with the pee-water story.
