Last week I received a four-pack of a decidedly not-beer canned beverage: Fishers Island Lemonade, a lemonade cocktail that hails from Connecticut. Fishers Island was rolling out the spiked drink to media in conjunction with “virtual sips” with founder Bronya Shillo, and accordingly I had a chance to chat with her online.

Here’s a bit of the backstory from the press release:

The world is handing us a lot of lemons these days, and Fishers Island Lemonade, the original cocktail-in-a-can, is committed to making (spiked) lemonade out of them. Fishers Island Lemonade is one of the many small businesses that is currently affected by the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic, but we are choosing not to let that get us down.

With options like delivery from liquor stores and sealed containers of alcohol to-go with food take-out (in some states), Fishers Island Lemonade is the perfect ready-to-drink cocktail to have in-stock in your Pandemic Pantry. It can be as simple as drinking from the can, pouring over ice, or if you have more time on your hands (don’t we all), one can get creative with mixed drink recipes.

I opened a can during my chat with Shillo, and learned more about the company and the drink while sipping on it over ice.

Shillo founded the company in 2014, basing the signature drink on a cocktail she created at her family’s bar on Fishers Island, NY—the Pequot Inn. This spiked lemonade was so popular that it seemed like a natural idea to try canning it. Six years later, and Fishers Island Lemonade is available across New England, as well as Georgia and Colorado. I asked Shillo what the production numbers look like; for 2019, the company sold over 60,000 cases.

The cocktail is pretty simple at its core: vodka, whiskey, lemon juice, and honey. The company produces the vodka in house, but sources the whiskey out due to the longer lifecycle necessary in producing it. (The barrel aging process takes months to years.) The drink is marketed as “gluten removed” though not through any other process than distillation—so it’s technically not gluten-free, but the trace amounts of gluten that make it through the distillation process are far lower than most gluten reduced beers.

I’ll pause in my exposition for a moment to talk about the Lemonade itself. It’s delicious. It tastes like a gently sweetened lemonade with just the right amount of alcohol heat like a good cocktail should. Nothing artificial or cloying about it either, it just tastes like a really good lemonade with a kick.

I tried it both straight (sips from the can) and over ice, and I did like it on the rocks just a bit more. There are also a number of recipes included for using the Lemonade as a mixer which could be worth exploring. But in general this is a good warm weather cocktail that I’d drink again.

One thing to note as well, even though this is canned, it’s not carbonated. So if you want to open a can, drink part of it and put it back in the fridge, it will keep.

I asked Shillo how the COVID-19 pandemic has been affecting the business. It’s taking a toll, but Shillo says that keeping each other positive is a big message they are conveying to the staff and their partners. “I’m really, really happy I’ve got a good team in place,” she said. “I’m really excited for the future.”

Having the product in cans has helped. There’s the retail market, and then Connecticut has allowed them to partner with on-premise establishments for take-out and curbside service. So where a bar couldn’t sell a bottle of vodka to go, they can sell Fishers Island Lemonade to go as it’s only 9% alcohol by volume. It’s a situation not unlike the one here in Oregon and elsewhere. So the company is partnering with some venues to sell to go.

Finally, distribution. I’d love to see this in Oregon, where cans have done well and this seems like it would be a natural fit. Maybe at some point. Shillo said Georgia has been doing well for them and they have some good partnerships in place. So expanding into more states makes sense, but of course it has to be measured (and perhaps during the pandemic isn’t the best time for it).

So unfortunately this isn’t something you’ll be able to find on the west coast—yet. But if you’re a cocktail drinker and you can find Fishers Island Lemonade on the shelves, consider this my recommendation to pick some up.