Years upon years ago, a mini-mart near where I lived used to sell a wonderfully blue concoction that I only knew as "Blue Nehi" which I always pronounced "Blue Knee-High." I don't remember much about the flavor (I was perhaps 7 years old when I last had it) but I remember absolutely loving it.
As time progressed, Blue Nehi stopped showing up in my area and before I knew it; I questioned whether or not I had made it up in my head or not. Convinced that was the case, I quietly accepted my ungraceful jump into senility.
Then, a couple months back, I was doing an article on the first soda to be sold in cans and that led me to the history of Royal Crown (RC) Cola. Turns out that before they were Royal Crown, they were known as Nehi and, in the late-1940s, one of their flavors was Nehi Blue Cream. After shaking the terrible image out of my head, it dawned on me that this was the magical "Blue Nehi" that I had given up on.
So no, I didn't go senile in my teens (apparently, I went senile when I was 20) and it very much existed. Though the company completely changed their name to their flagship product in the 1950s, the Nehi brand still pops up on uber-rare occasions.
So I now have another goal to reach for in life. First, I need to get my hands on Pepsi Clear and do a taste test (then promptly have my stomach pumped, I wanna kill two birds with one stone here.) Then I need to get my hands on some new Nehi Blue Cream and see if its flavor happens to jog my memory. It'd be nice to verify whether or not this was the same drink that I loved as a kid.
