The stars of teen TV drama series Vampire Diaries have sunk their teeth into the bourbon industry. Actors Ian Somerhalder and Paul Wesley co-founded Brother’s Bond during pandemic lockdowns, building on their following from the popular show to launch their flagship bourbon in what was the most successful pre-sale launch on ReserveBar. Since then the brand has built their retail footprint to 45 states, 20,000 points of distribution, and released new expressions recently that have earned double gold accolades.
We chatted with Somerhalder and Paul Wesley as well as CEO Vincent Hanna about how the brand has worked to overcome the pitfalls of being affiliated with celebrity, what strategies they’ve used to connect with retailers, and why regenerative agriculture has become a centerpiece of the brand. Answers have been edited for clarity and length.
When you launched, the brand secured the highest velocity of sales in a 24-hour period on ReserveBar following pre-sales in 2020 and 2021. What has been your growth strategy since then?
Hanna: That launch was amazing for us to get the data to look at where people were buying, and obviously we knew there was a certain demographic for the brand and the guys. So we used that to decide how to launch into which states, and it was about building the brand with the distributors and making sure we have the right distributor and at the right time. We also had certain capacity restraints, based on our production because our whiskey sits in a barrel for four years. Going into the market during a pandemic was not the easiest thing ever, because we wanted to go out and visit the markets, which we couldn’t do. So this is a year to really show that growth, focus on key markets and build on that particularly in California, Texas, Florida and New York.
We know there are a number of benefits from being a celebrity brand, what are some of the pitfalls?
Wesley: I think it’s a great launching point. A lot of people try to launch new brands and they can’t generate the same amount of publicity that Ian and I were able to do just based on our following. So that’s something we’re very grateful for, but then on the flip side, there’s a sort of inherent skepticism from certain industry folks, or even just whiskey connoisseurs who say, what do these guys know about bourbon? That’s the stigma that we’re always trying to fight or destigmatize, in the sense that we actually love bourbon and we created this ourselves as opposed to just lending our names, which is what a lot of celebrity brands do. We really want to make this about the bourbon: it’s about products, about the quality, about our passion.
What has been your thought process around expanding Brother’s Bond offerings?
Wesley: That’s what I’m most excited about, we just launched a rye, which I think is my favorite of all three SKUs we have so far. And what we’re really interested in doing and exploring quite aggressively is barrel finishes. I really want to do limited release barrel expressions. I personally love it and it creates a sense of community, and people get to try different finishes. You obviously want to have that one key SKU for repeat customers, but it’s really cool to offer those small extensions.
Somerhalder: It also allows us to flex our muscles as far as the expertise and passion that we put into it. We need all those expressions to actually bring out different profiles that people want to get into.
How does your brand appeal to retailers and how do you help them tell your story?
Hanna: So one of the things we got from our launch was this data that we captured that female millennial demographic, and that was very important for retailers to get.
Somerhalder: I say this in all humility, but I think you’d be hard pressed to find a case study in the alcohol spirits business that has this level of quality with 14 years of IP built into it. The cool thing is that with the success of Vampire Diaries, in 2009 If you were a 13 year-old-girl watching the show, 14 years later, you are an adult in the workforce. So we see it in the cross demographics, where we have Gen Z and millennials bringing the product to their moms and dads, and you have moms and dads buying it for their Gen Z and millennial children. Now we’re seeing young women, Gen Z and millennial women’s drinking bourbon with their friends or with their dads.
Certainly something Paul and I talked about a lot is that retailers don’t necessarily just mean regional, super regional and national retailers. Retailers are also independent, family, community-based retailers. And so while Paul and I can’t literally walk into every one, which we’ve tried (I did 100 flights last year) one thing that the team has been able to build is an asset that we can then send to retailers they can immediately upload onto their portal or into their website. Our aesthetic is there and then boom, we’re part of their network.
Hanna: It’s not always easy to have a national platform with larger retailers, each one and each state is different from the other. But we know with Gen Z that they are much more likely to grab their phone to get fed information. So it’s finding a way to listen to each store’s challenges and help retailers get them that information as quickly as we can.
How are you building your on-premise strategy now?
Wesley: We kicked it off so hard in the retail because of COVID, that now going into on-premise is so far the one thing that we haven’t quite nailed yet, and we’re slowly getting there. In New York City and Miami we’ve done a ton of visits and we’re getting into certain restaurant groups. It’s something we’re heavily focused on now because as we all know it’s such an important thing— people try it at a bar restaurant and then they buy it in the store.
Somerhalder: We blended our flagship for us, as if you were coming to one of our homes and we would serve you this taste profile that we love. But the rye, which actually has become our favorite part of our portfolio, we blended it for the gatekeepers, the bartenders, the GMs, the mixologist, the chefs, the real rye enthusiasts.
You’ve been using regenerative grains and donate a portion of profits to support regenerative agriculture, and Ian worked as an executive producer on the documentary Kiss the Ground, which unpacks the ways in which the earth’s soil may be the key to combating climate change. What has been consumers’ reaction to that?
Somerhalder: We know we only have enough topsoil left for 60 harvests. The response from consumers to the data and the film: anger, fear, excitement, a whole range. The second film drops Sunday at Tribeca. The response has been that we transitioned 30 million acres in three years into regenerative agriculture, on our way to 100 million acres. We know there’s 100 billion acres farmed in the U.S., so 10% is the critical moment that we never go back. We can turn it around. The stat is 54% of consumers are willing to try products created with regenerative methods. But there are challenges, we are not able to load up all regenerative grains in our barrels. We just started buying white sonoran wheat from Arizona, which we are so excited about. Right now it’s limited, but in 12 months we’ll be having a far different conversation.