In a 99-cent AriZona Iced Tea can, echoes of childhood autonomy and fleeting freedoms

NEW YORK (AP) — Four quarters used to buy a can of AriZona Iced Tea. You’d crack it open and savor the artificially flavored, high-fructose-corn-syrup-sweetened drink between fits of giggling on the walk home from school.

For some, the can symbolized childhood autonomy. It was among the first solo purchases a kid made or a reward for satisfactorily completed chores.

With inflation, a 99-cent thirst-quencher is a matter of nostalgia for adults with matured beverage tastes. An AriZona “tallboy” — the printed price on the can serving as a measuring stick for the value of a dollar — remains especially affordable and instructive for American youth with allowance, disposable income from part-time wages or birthday money.

Founded in 1992, AriZona Beverage Company first launched drinks in Brooklyn, New York. The 99-cent cans launched in 1997. Popularity — and profitability — of the drink came soon after. But it was the price sticker that promoted a kind of utilitarianism — a warning to shop owners looking for a higher profit margin.

Countless American preteens and teenagers across class have paired AriZona drinks with their bagged snack of choice and candy — a trifecta downed before reaching the front door and discovering … dinner. Allowance and childhood disposable income, however, have never been universal. Some could count on receiving a few dollars irregularly or not at all.

Still, when most other prices went up, the AriZona drink’s price permanence was something that didn’t necessitate debit cards or parental approval. Coins and dollar bills sweetened the experience of forging friendships on the journey home.

Just who gets the privilege of experiencing money as freedom makes the AriZona can more than just a bodega staple. It shows how much culture can be concealed in ordinary consumer transactions.

On Feb. 26, 2012, 17-year-old Trayvon Martin left the gated residential community in Sanford, Florida, where his father lived en route to a 7-Eleven. The hoodie-wearing Black teenager was filmed on surveillance purchasing a watermelon-flavored AriZona drink and a pack of Skittles. When he discovered he was being tailed by a neighborhood watch volunteer, Trayvon confronted him. The teen didn’t survive the encounter; George Zimmerman shot him in the chest.

The AriZona drink and Skittles became evidence in a homicide investigation, and soon after became one of the earliest protest symbols in the Black Lives Matter movement sparked by Zimmerman’s acquittal. More than 13 years later, some still associate these items with questions of who in the U.S. is truly free to move through public spaces without being regarded as suspicious.

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Aaron Morrison is the race and ethnicity news editor at AP. This story is part of a recurring series, “ American Objects,” marking the 250th anniversary of the United States. For more stories on the anniversary, click here.