Jason Momoa holds up a bottle of his Meili Vodka during a celebration event with his best friend and co-founder Blaine Halvorson at Hyde Sunset Kitchen + Cocktails on Monday (November 20) in West Hollywood, Calif.
Meili, pronounced MAY-lee, means the god of travel in Norse mythology, representing the adventurer’s heart, the purity of discovery and the spirit of exploration.
Since vodka is 60% water, Jason and Blaine were on the hunt to find the purest of water sources. The key? Blaine‘s home state of Montana.
“It’s this beautiful water source that comes off of this limestone shelf – 300 million-year-old aquifer,” Jason recently told Forbes. “It looked like Avatar – I had never seen so much life at a water source, where there’s snow everywhere. We come to find what makes it so special is that there’s no sodium in that water. The salt is really what takes away some of the notes that you taste in that from our grains, and it’s high in calcium and sulfur. That’s what gives it that really unique taste.”
The Aquaman actor added the important of sustainability in the brand: “I obviously do a lot of stuff, very passionate about our planet. I’m big on making something that’s completely 100% post-consumer glass. Blaine found someone who makes the best glasses down in Mexico. What’s been great about this is we’re going to be making them out of Pennsylvania, so we’ll be 100% in the U.S. Being able to make the glass here, which will be the first time, is amazing. Down to every little detail, it’s pretty intense to make that bottle that beautiful and make it recycled and have all the nuances that it has. It’s our little baby.”
Below, watch Jason’s speech at the Meili event, which included a shout-out to his nearest and dearest friend Pantera Sarah, who let him sleep on her couch when he first moved to Los Angeles!
