Blake Lively Reveals The Sweet Way Her Family Inspired Her Business

It’s been a busy year for Blake Lively. Not only as an actor — her twisty sequel Another Simple Favor arrived this spring — but as an entrepreneur, too. Weeks after expanding her Blake Brown beauty brand with new hair and body mists, Lively made another business move that’s perfectly timed to summer: the arrival of two new canned vodka iced teas to her beverage company, Betty Booze.

They join the tequila and bourbon flavors already available at Betty Booze, a sister brand to the non-alcoholic Betty Buzz. Lively’s foray into the beverage space was partly inspired by her family. “They’re with me everywhere all the time, and I just love them so much. Everything I do is for them, with them, because of them,” she says of the four children she shares with husband Ryan Reynolds. “Part of Betty Buzz is me doing lemonade stands with my girls and making really delicious lemonade, and going, ‘OK, how do we capture this? How do we put this in a bottle?’”

Lively, 37, found that in addition to being delicious for the kiddos and those who prefer not to drink alcohol, the drinks were equally popular among adult friends who tried theirs with liquor, sparking a sweet realization. “Why can’t there be a brand that you can trust to not put any artificial anything in it, to be good quality, great flavors, made with care, made responsibly, and made for different preferences?” Lively says. “And labeled differently so there’s no confusion.”

The two new flavors, Vodka Iced Tea + Meyer Lemonade and Vodka Iced Tea + Passion Fruit, are concocted with fresh and simple ingredients, something Lively is passionate about, even though she doesn’t drink alcoholic beverages.

“People have said to me, ‘Well, how dare you have a drinks company when you’re somebody who talks about how you don’t drink?’ Well, I try the drinks. I make the drinks,” says Lively. “Flavor is flavor.”

Speaking of flavor, which product from the Betty Booze lineup might Serena van der Woodsen — Lively’s character from Gossip Girl — choose, we wonder? Lively suggests Vodka Iced Tea + Passion Fruit.

“Because she’s always about, like, ‘What’s the new thing?’ That’s our newest one, so I feel like that would be very on-trend for her,” she says. “Or maybe the Peach Honey Mint, because it feels light and carefree.”