Ian Somerhalder and Paul Wesley are launching their own brand of bourbon named Brother’s Bond.
Paul Wesley and Ian Somerhalder
The two actors starred as on-screen vampiric brothers Damon and Stefan Salvatore in ‘The Vampire Diaries’ and they’ve now cemented their brotherly bond in their latest joint business venture, which will see them release their very own bourbon.
Ian, 42, said of the project: "This has been 10 years in the making. Our soul is in this bottle."
Whilst Paul, 38, added: "A lot of people will put their names on something, and then their heart's not in it. For us, everything in this bottle is ours. This label, we created, the name, we created, the design, we created, the taste, the mash — everything is our creation. This is about people drinking it together in celebration of something or taking a moment to talk to one another."
Brother’s Bond will be available in stores and online May 1, and the actors say the idea to launch a bourbon brand came organically after they’d been discussing potential business ventures for years.
Paul said: "I've always been a bourbon guy. It's always appealed to my palette. Our characters used to drink a lot of bourbon. Ian and I would go out, during the weekends or after work, and take it easy. And it would always be bourbon. It just become like, second nature.
“If we're going to have a drink, it's going to be bourbon. So we became these kind of like, pseudo bourbon snob connoisseurs. We love our bourbon. We know what we like. So that's the genesis of this and that's how this whole thing started. And so we felt like if we're going to do anything together, it has to be bourbon."
And Ian explained: "There was no defining moment. We talked about this over and over and over and the joke is, and it's kind of true, this is not like a friendship. This is like a brotherhood, it's like a marriage. We've been in it together for so long."
Ian and Paul also revealed that whilst they loved taking part in ‘The Vampire Diaries’, they’re equally as excited for the future.
Speaking in a joint interview with People magazine, Paul said: "With all due respect, it was such a great period of my life. And I'm so grateful, but for me, everyone has chapters and that's that chapter. And this is a new chapter. You don't want to ruin what's already been created."
To which Ian added: "I often have said, because I've had this conversation so many times with people and I thought, 'Well, what would that look like?' And I can't imagine it."
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