An unexpected find in the estate of the first US president

Archaeologists made the discovery as part of an excavation that is part of a major restoration of the estate known as Mount Vernon. The bottles, which appear to have been made between 1740 and 1950, were found under a brick floor that was laid in 1770, the report said.

To preserve the roughly 250-year-old glass bottles, researchers poured their contents — including cherries, pits, stems and “sticky residue” — into smaller containers for future analysis, The Washington Post reported.

“There are healthy, recognizable cherries,” Jason Boroughs, Mount Vernon’s chief archaeologist, told The Washington Post. “When we got to the bottom, it actually smelled like cherry blossoms.”

Scientists believe that much of the amber-colored liquid may have been groundwater that seeped into the bottles over time when their corks decayed — and that the cherries were likely harvested in Mount Vernon in the 17th century. in the 1960s, perhaps before the Revolution, and laid aside for future consumption. The bottles themselves were buried sometime between 1758 and 1776, The Washington Post reported.

“So it’s a time capsule,” Mr Boroughs said.

Cherry bounce, a drink made from brandy, spices, sugar, and cherry juice, was popular in colonial times (both Washington and his wife Martha were fans of the drink.) But it was usually kept in larger containers, leading archaeologists to conclude that that it is likely that these now-discovered berries were preserved for other uses, such as cooking or baking. “There is the 18th century. descriptions that talk about proper methods of preserving fruits and vegetables, the archaeologist said. “One of the most common ways, especially with berries, is to dry them as much as possible… put them in a dry bottle, close the cork… and bury them.”

It is worth noting that the cherries were most likely not picked by G. Washington himself, but by someone from the hundreds of slaves who lived in Mount Vernon at the time. And according to the Mount Vernon Washington Museum, the famous story about a young Washington cutting down a cherry tree with an ax and later confessing because he “couldn’t tell a lie” is a biographer’s myth. This isn’t the first time similar containers of vintage cherries and other fruit have been found in Virginia. in 1966 the bottles were found in Williamsburg, and in 1981 Several bottles were found at Thomas Jefferson’s estate in Monticello, according to Live Science.