The Folly Brook Natural Area — a wooded wetland just south of the Folly Brook dike and city line, north of Wethersfield Cove — collects as much trash as Hartford’s natural areas. The lighter stuff like candy wrappers and plastic bags probably drifts in. The only tracks in the mud belong to deer and raccoon. Other litter, like soda cans, must float, arriving via Folly Brook, another waterway stuffed into a conduit. It emerges into daylight around Hartford Avenue, between the South Meadows and the first homes in Wethersfield. Or, it likely drifts from Wethersfield Cove, which has access to the Connecticut River. Floodwater was receding.

Trash ages into treasure, at least when it is constructed to last. It could have been passed over, this one bottle, mostly submerged in the muck. It had taken up residence. A plant was growing in the bottle stamped with “Hartford” and “Bacon Bottling Co.”

Bacon Bottling, which went through a few names, at one time used the slogan: “since 1851 — Connecticut’s Oldest Liquor House.” William A. Bacon actually started this off as a grocery store on Front Street. By all accounts, his business thrived, but around a decade later he decided to abandon the store. Moving on up, he started the bottling works (William A. Bacon & Son) on Main Street. Newspaper accounts of this vary, referring to his operation as being on Sheldon, Elm, and Main, but at least one article noted this to be where City Hall is today. When the old man retired, his son took over and acquired the property on Morris Street which continues to bear the name “Bacon Bottling Co.”

The business continued for one more generation before being purchased by another family, who kept it for several generations and expanded more, moving some operations to Homestead Avenue. Over the years their products included soft drinks, soda water, ale, porter, and cider. When the Bacons sold the business to the Goldsteins, vodka, kosher wine, and a low calorie wine, were added to the mix.

A 2015 article in the Los Angeles Times, along with one published in The Grapevine Magazine, both claim that Australia’s Barokes Wines had been the first to try packaging wine in cans in 1996. An article published by the Hartford Courant in 1954, however, said that Bacon Bottling Company was the “first in Connecticut to ‘package’ wine in cans. It also is believed to be the first in the country to offer wine in tin containers.” Barron’s in 1937 wrote that there had been some experimentation with canning wine in 1936. Whether or not Bacon Bottling was the first in the country to put wine in a can, it achieved this long before 1996 and in the 1960s was selling Vodka City Screwdriver Cocktails in cans.