Archaeologists recently discovered two intact, sealed glass bottles containing 250-year-old cherries in the cellar of George Washington’s historic Virginia home. The dark green bottles contained liquid and preserved cherry remains, including pits and stems. Remarkably, the contents still retained the scent of cherry blossoms, a fragrance familiar to the region during the spring.

The bottles were transported to an archaeology lab to be unsealed, a process intended to stabilize the glass after centuries of being buried underground. Jason Boroughs, the principal archaeologist at Mount Vernon, suggests these cherries were likely preserved using 18th-century methods—specifically by drying the fruit, placing it in a bottle, corking it, and burying it—to allow for later consumption.

Historical evidence indicates that the cherries were likely harvested by one of the hundreds of enslaved individuals residing at Mount Vernon at the time. Researchers determined that the bottles were placed in a small, rectangular pit dug into the cellar floor sometime between 1758 and 1776, after which the soil was replaced.

While investigators initially considered if the bottles held “Cherry Bounce,” a favorite brandy-based drink of George Washington, they ultimately ruled this out because such beverages were typically stored in larger containers. This discovery, made during a mansion revitalization project, is considered significant and holds the potential to add new depth to the historic narrative of the estate.