quarter water

From the cost (a quarter) and the main ingredient (water).

quarter water (plural quarter waters)

1. (US) A combination of water, food coloring, and sugar sold as a drink in small plastic bottles for 25 cents.
   • 2008, Ellington Rudi Robinson, Underneath the Music, →ISBN, page 3:

     A bell rings and Pavlov's law is confirmed every time; the ice cream truck comes up the street and kids start flying from their houses; and we get in line to make our selection of pop sickles, quarter waters, push up pops, and rockets.

   • 2011, Patrice Evans, Negropedia, →ISBN:

     Well, there's water, and then there's quarter-waters. Ghetto Gatorade.

   • 2011, Maurice Patterson, Inner-city Diet, →ISBN, page 30:

     When I was a kid, quarter water was the drink of choice because it only cost a quarter.

   • 2013, Yanatha Desouvre, Walk Through This Journey: Volume One, →ISBN:

     I remember those times. The corner bodega shops with the quarter waters and yellow lemon drops and the now and later, Do you remember then?

   • 2014, Miss Sixx, 15th & East Capitol, →ISBN, page 69:

     A city block, chock full of empty heroin bags, used condoms, dirty diapers and expired bus passes. Sewer grates, straining under the weight of quarter water bottles and wrappers from cheap snacks and cakes.