Stefan and Damon's relationship was always a bit complicated on CW's hit show The Vampire Diaries. What with being doomed to fall in love with the same girl twice in a row (not to mention those two girls looked exactly alike) and holding grudges against one another for centuries. But the two brothers always seemed to come back together once in a while, usually over a glass of bourbon to drown their sorrows, and apparently their off-screen counterparts aren't that different. Paul Wesley and Ian Somerhalder have a real-life bromance, and they also enjoy bourbon just as much as their characters.
There's no doubt that there's been some drama off-screen just as much as there's been on-screen, but throughout the years the one solid thing to come out of the series is Wesley and Somerhalder's friendship. The pair have constantly teased fans, while still on the show and now years after it has ended, with photos of them together, hanging out, or mentioning each other in throwbacks on social media.
On the night of the series finale of TVD in 2017, Wesley posted a throwback photo of the pair eight years previously before the fame of the show really kicked off. "In honor of the final EP of VD airing tonight, here's a throwback pic of me and smoldeypants conspiring on an airplane 8 years ago," Wesley captioned the photo. Before that, Wesley and Somerhalder's social media was riddled with great photos of them together, some even hilarious, like the one on Wesley's account that showed them wearing "soft" Stefan and Damon T-shirts.
In 2018, Wesley posted a photo of Somerhalder and himself for Somerhalder's 40th birthday saying his co-star was no longer a "teen," and in 2019, Wesley posted another picture of Somerhalder visiting Welsey and his family in their native Poland. When Somerhalder married his wife, Nikki Reed, Wesley said, "Now we can't get married and I'm sad about that. That's something I was looking forward to," and when asked who on the set of TVD made him laugh the most, Somerhalder said, "Paul Wesley. As boring as he seems in this interview, he's actually one of the funniest people you've ever met."
According to Somerhalder, the bromance is strong between them because they do pretty much the same things. "To be honest with you, everything that he does and I do pretty much. We spend every day together... We all know each other's buttons, and we don't purposely push them because we have too much sh*t going on... We protect each other, and we help each other... I find everything annoying about him and nothing at all."
Wesley said on Watch What Happens Live With Andy Cohen, "Ian's a very loving guy, and we hug a lot and yes we have cuddled... I'm sure we've maybe cuddled up on a plane of something like that... we haven't spooned yet. But yeah no we hug each other a lot, he gives me kisses on the cheek all the time."
After all these years though, they are taking their bromance to the next level and bonding over what they (and their VD characters) love; bourbon. The announcement the pair were starting their own bourbon business came last September, and during Elle's Thirst Trap Youtube video in December 2019, Somerhalder said that the ladies will really like the bourbon because it's sweet, but that doesn't mean the guys won't like it. Back in February on Kelly Clarkson's show, Somerhalder teased that he and Wesley were making their own line of bourbon as well and said, "We love each other. We have wanted to kill each other about 800 times. But that means brothers."
According to Entertainment Weekly the pair have now announced the name of the bourbon, which has been rumored to be related to TVD. Somerhalder wrote on Twitter, "Twitterverse Meet Brother’s Bond Bourbon. Please go to http://BrothersBondBourbon.com To sign up! We can’t wait to share this with you! Please share this with friends and family! If you were legal drinking age in the United States or in your home country!"
On Radio Andy, Somerhalder told Andy Cohen that they have been working and designing the company for years now. "We've been working our asses off on this," Somerhalder said. "The Salvatore brothers have a bourbon, and you had all these memories of the Salvatore boys and this is about making even more memories."
Right now, it doesn't seem like the website for the drink is working, so Somerhalder and Wesley might have to sort a few bugs before they can get a true following for it, but other than that the aesthetic for the straight bourbon whiskey looks like something the vampire brothers would pick up and down whole. The pair's signatures are printed on the labels, and we can't quite make out what the picture is of but it looks like corn husks sprouting out of a tree with two figures resting against its trunk.
Even though TVD is long over, we still have Wesley and Somerhalder's relationship to get us through without it. It's always great to see co-stars being best friends in real life, and now these two have taken it a step farther and love each other so much they started a company together. All is right with the Salvatore boys. We have a feeling we'll be storing this bourbon in a secret spot, just like Damon.
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