George Washington's stash of centuries-old cherries found hidden under Mount Vernon floor

Two glass bottles filled with centuries-old cherries were found hidden inside George Washington's historic home in Virginia.

Archaeologists made the discovery while conducting ongoing excavations as part of a major revitalization of the mansion, known as Mount Vernon. The bottles, which look like they were made in the 1740s to 1750s, were found buried beneath a brick floor that was laid in the 1770s, according to a Mount Vernon statement.

To help preserve the roughly 250-year-old glass bottles, researchers decanted their contents — including cherries, pits, stems and a "gooey residue" — into smaller vessels for future analysis, The Washington Post reported.

"There are whole, recognizable cherries," Jason Boroughs, Mount Vernon's principal archaeologist, told The Washington Post. "It actually smelled like cherry blossoms when we got to the bottom."

Researchers think that much of the amber-colored liquid could be groundwater that seeped into the bottles as their corks deteriorated over time and that the cherries were likely harvested at Mount Vernon in the 1770s, possibly before the Revolutionary War, and squirreled away for future consumption. The bottles themselves were buried sometime between 1758 and 1776, The Washington Post reported.

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"So it's a time capsule," Boroughs said.