Chronicles of Life… The sweet search

It’s starting to heat up outside and that can only mean one thing: it’s time for a honey dripper. I am now on a quest to find one (or more). One of my cousins mentioned honey drippers a few days ago, and that sparked my sudden craving. Sadly, I haven’t had that delicious goodness in about two years. I think it’s high time that changed.


A honey dripper is the quintessential warm weather treat. The key ingredients are Kool Aid (in different flavors) or Hawaiian Punch and pineapple juice with mixed fruit sometimes added as a bonus. You combine the ingredients together in a paper/plastic cup and freeze it solid. The finished honey dripper equals a taste sensation like no other.

My daddy was the first one to introduce me to the joys of a honey dripper. I was in pre-k at the time. Someone in my grandma’s neighborhood made them. He bought us both one and the first taste blew my little mind. It had fruit in it, tasted sweeter than honey and dripped all over as I slurped it down (thus the name honey dripper).

I had more honey drippers through the years, but my last experience was in college. My community service organization, SISTUHS, Inc., often volunteered with a local Girl Scout troop. These were no normal Girl Scouts, mind you. They were Girl Scouts in the hood. Those little girls always kept things interesting, especially when it was cookie selling time, but that’s another story. One Saturday I saw a scout slurping down a honey dripper. My mouth watered, my heart leaped and I only had one question, “Where can I get one, too?” A woman in the neighborhood was selling them. Immediately a group of us flocked to her door. Soon there were Girl Scouts and college students walking around with several flavors of honey drippers.

Honey drippers are not a popsicle or an ice cream treat which you can merely get at a grocery store or from an ice cream truck. They are a rarity sold only in a neighborhood home. Usually somebody’s mama, grandma, aunt, or whoever has a side hustle of a snack shop. She probably sells hot sausages, pickles, chips, pickled eggs, boiled peanuts and candy. The shop, however, is not complete without honey drippers: 25 cents without fruit and 50 cents with.

Thinking about this is starting to feel like torture. I need a honey dripper ASAP! Or should I say frozen cup, sherbet or lily dilly to keep confusion down? I found out through my Palatka family and college friends that while the product is universal, the name is not. Honey drippers are called many things throughout Florida, and probably in other states too. At least the ingredients are always the same. Push cup, sweet treat, frozen sweet, whatever. Honey dripper is clearly the best name. Then again I am biased. So call it what you want. I simply call it good. Now I just need somebody to tell me where I can find a honey dripper.