Ian Somerhalder and Paul Wesley Are Celebrating the Holidays With a Cocktail-Making Competition

The Vampire Diaries alum talks holiday plans, Brother's Bond bourbon, and his new animated short with Nutro.

Ian Somerhalder is already looking forward to being home for the holidays after a hectic year that included the release of his documentary, Common Ground, the birth of his and wife Nikki Reed's second baby, and spreading the word about Brother's Bond, the bourbon company he co-founded with his Vampire Diaries co-star, Paul Wesley.

However, he does intend to say hello, brother and spend some quality time with his good friend (and former on-screen sibling) Wesley. In fact, Somerhalder tells InStyle that the two have already penciled in a hangout that includes some healthy competition in the form of mixology with their award-winning bourbon.

"We’re going to meet up at our office, we’re going to kick off our boots and put up our feet, we’re gonna make each other our Brother’s Fashioneds [their take on an Old Fashioned] — so we can judge each other," he says. "And we’re just going to toast an incredible, wild year."

But before 2023 is up, Somerhalder is adding yet another title to his already extensive résumé. Today, the actor is narrating a new animated short, titled Tail of Two Farms, as a part of pet food company NUTRO's healthy soil campaign, which aims to spread awareness about the importance of soil quality.

"When you utilize healthy soil practices, you are using a regenerative way of farming that builds the soil, meaning makes the soil healthy where it ensures you have a secure supply chain of food for generations and generations and generations," he explains. "This isn't rocket science. Healthy soil leads to healthy people and pets. Healthy soil leads to a healthy society, that's the bottom line."

Related: Nikki Reed Shares the Very First Glimpse of Her Baby with Ian Somerhalder

If this new partnership and his two climate crisis documentaries, Kiss the Ground and the aforementioned Common Ground, don’t give away his passion for nature and the planet, then maybe his 18 (or 19, he didn’t have time to do the math, saying, “I think we have 18 now or 19. A lot of pets, a lot of fur.“) animals will.

"The best part about it — I mean there is an innumerable amount of amazing aspects of it — is the energy and the mindfulness that you learn to be present and to be compassionate and to be kind," he says about being a fur dad. "When you see people and children around animals, it would be an incredibly lonely planet without these fur babies. So, taking care of them in every way shape and form is important."

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