Brother’s Bond Bourbon Off To A Fast Start In The Celebrity Whiskey Space

Actors Ian Somerhalder and Paul Wesley played brothers Damon and Stefan on the hit CW series The Vampire Diaries. Over the show’s eight-season run, their characters frequently retreated to their home’s Bourbon cellar to commiserate about their love lives, the latest supernatural threats facing them, and having a more than 150-year-old mind trapped in the immortal body of a hunky 20-something. Now the two actors have partnered on Brother’s Bond Bourbon ($44 a 750-ml.), a standalone brand that’s gotten off to a fast start since launching a year ago.

Using liquid from MGP and assistance from MGP master blender Sam Schmeltzer, Brother’s Bond depleted over 50,000 cases in its first year and is looking to double that in year two. On the business side, Wesley and Somerhalder brought in wine and spirits industry veteran Vincent Hanna as co-founder and CEO. “We’re super happy with it because that category’s growing,” Hanna told SND. “We’re not taking anybody’s market share. We’re growing the pie. We’re bringing in new consumers, like female millennials and legal drinking age members of Gen Z.”

Somerhalder’s connection to Bourbon runs deep and dates to his upbringing in the bayous of Louisiana. “A lot of property lines there are sugar cane,” Somerhalder told SND. “It’s cheaper than a fence and it grows. So when I was a little kid, on Sundays my dad could give me a cane knife and me and my cousins, we’d go and cut down the cane and drag it back and run it through a press and all that beautiful cane juice would come out. And then you just go pick giant basket-fulls of the mint that grows everywhere. As a kid, you muddle it together, just the mint and sugar cane. But, what do adults do with muddled mint and sugar? Make Mint Juleps. And after church all the adults would get together and make Mint Juleps. These are some of my earliest memories.”

Brother’s Bond also has the distinction of being the most followed beverage alcohol brand on Instagram, with 1.7 million followers. That presence has given the brand a considerable advantage and access to consumers that haven’t typically been core Bourbon buyers, who are buying with enthusiasm. “Our depletions are at 83% across the board,” Hanna said. “That gives us more support from the distributor.” The brand continues to expand at a rapid clip–this month it added eight new markets and is now available across 35 states, with the remainder expected to be added over the course of the year. RNDC is its largest distributor, with other key wholesale partners including Breakthru, Empire Merchants, Fedway, and Martignetti.

So far, the brand has limited itself to a single SKU, but new products are coming soon. A cask strength version of Brother’s Bond Bourbon will be in market in June, followed by a Rye in the second half of this year. The team is optimistic about these launches, noting that the brand is gaining traction outside of Somerhalder and Wesley’s fame. “It’s not about, ‘Hey, you’re a fan of me or that show I was on,’” Hanna said. “They bought the first bottle as a Vampire Diaries fan. They bought the second and third as Brother’s Bond fans. And that to us is just magic.”—Danny Sullivan

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