Fishers Island Lemonade Celebrates 10 Years In A Can

A local drink on a summery island is celebrating its 10th anniversary as a canned cocktail.

Every summer, the family and staff at the Pequot Inn serves up thousands of gallons of Fishers Island Lemonade.

Bronya Shillo’s family took over this 1901-founded establishment in 1996, and she worked as a bartender most summers to help her family out. In 2012, she was standing at the beer cooler, wondering if she had enough of the popular vodka and whiskey based cocktail or if she had to make another batch. “The recipe had been handed down, bartender to bartender, and it was the most popular drink,” she says. “We always ran out of it, and it was there, at the beer cooler, that I had this light bulb moment. I wondered if I could can it.”

Two years and lots of research and development later, Shillo debuted her canned version of Fishers Island Lemonade. That was Memorial Day weekend in 2014, and Shillo, of course, debuted her canned cocktail at the Pequot Inn.

Fishers Island Lemonade, she says, had and still has a cult following. “There has always been a demand for it, and it was one of those things, if people were visiting, they had to try it,” she says. “If kids, as soon as they were turning 21, then their first drink had to be a Fishers Island Lemonade.”

Shillo wondered if the refreshing drink, which has an ABV of 9 percent, could expand its fan base. That’s exactly what happened, as this weekend, Shillo and Fishers Island Lemonade is celebrating its 10th anniversary.

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