Natasha Cabenda stumbled upon these bottles in the mondi, the dense mantle of shrubbery that covers the hills of the island. The mondi is not only a dry wilderness that is hard to penetrate, it is also a treasure trove of the past.

“As I got more into historical research, I started doing field search trips through the bushes. While collecting other objects I found these lemonade bottles. I realized that in time they too would become very valuable because we don’t produce them on the island anymore. The black bottles are the hardest ones to find as people were paid a 6 cents deposit per bottle upon returning them. I found these in mondis that were previously freely accessible but had been closed to the public.”

“The crate itself has special meaning to me. When I was little, everybody used to have at least one crate with empty bottles in their yard. Whenever there was a party they would return the crate to the liquor store and have the bottles refilled. The liquor stores sold lemonade made at the local Britannia factory such as Canada Dry and Orange Crush. At the time that I collected these bottles the Britannia factory had already shut down but you could still refill your Pepsi and Pop lemonade bottles at the local Pepsi factory.”

“The crate and bottles remind me of celebrations, parties, and having fun. At parties, people would lay an old refrigerator on its back, fill it with cold water and ice blocks and let all the lemonade bottles float in it. We never imagined that one day lemonade would be sold in plastic or aluminum.”