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How do you make teetotalism tempting? Dress it up in a stylishly seductive package, a vintage cocktail dress, and a pair of cowboy boots. That has been founder Jen Batchelor’s tack at Kin Euphorics, her nonalcoholic, functional beverage brand formulated with a blend of nootropics, adaptogens, and botanics. Inspired by the idea that self-care doesn’t stop at sunset, Batchelor wants to turn the perception of abstinent socializing on its head with elegantly crafted cocktails that deliver a beneficial buzz instead of a hangover, and now, a chic clubhouse in West Hollywood for Kin to host drinks parties for the sober curious.
An Ayurvedic herbologist with a background in psychology, Batchelor was raised in Saudi Arabia where she learned first hand about the interplay between alcohol and community—her father was a bootlegger who made his own sidiki, a desert moonshine, in the family’s bathtub. “Every weekend the whole expat community on the compound would have these big gatherings centered around drinking because that’s all there was to do,” she says. Not a teetotaler herself, Batchelor, and the concept behind Kin, is more about challenging and disrupting alcohol’s role in social interaction, intimacy, and friendship than promoting straight-up sobriety. “What we are really saying when we say ‘Hey, want to grab a drink?’ is ‘I want to clock off and catch up with you,’ ” says Batchelor. “This is not about replacing alcohol, it’s about giving people more time to fill their life with meaningful things.”
The idea for Kin House came about when customers began to ask Batchelor if she was planning to open a Euphorics-focused bar. While she was too busy working on the brand to take on a project of that scope, she did like the idea of creating a gathering place where this alt-socializing could happen. “A community space where we could host events and introduce people to Kin,” she says. Located in a classic Spanish-style bungalow, the result is a SoCal meet ’30s Miami Art Deco mash-up where pieces such as Ben Medansky’s totemic sculpture Stacks (from the recent Frieze Art Fair in Los Angeles) and Bradley Duncan’s rose quartz stone circle sit alongside a mid-century lucite bar and stool set and a seashell-shaped sectional sofa. “I wanted it to hark back to a more glamorous, sensual, and slower time,” she says.
When it comes to her personal style, Batchelor also wanted to disrupt the prevailing perception of wellness and temperance, forgoing white yogi-style robes for lots of color. “I’m big on color therapy in dressing,” she says. “If I’m going to a meeting I don’t wear red because I don’t want to inflame the other person. Blue is very calming and I like to wear this Badlands pink color that we’ve used throughout the house.”
“Construction and fabrics really matters to me and I want to feel elegant,” Batchelor says of her love of the vintage pieces and cowboy boots which she picks up on her travels and at vintage clothing fairs like A Current Affair. “There’s something so glamorous about pieces from the ’50s and ’60s because they feel like they were made just for the wearer.” For everyday errands, however, she largely sticks to a uniform of vintage jeans and tops with a pair of Sabah Baba slippers and hats made by her friend and milliner Teressa Foglia and a vintage robe or coat thrown over top.
“When I think back on my conscientious choices, there are a couple things that influence me,” she says of her shopping habits. “I’m a new founder so I want to support other new brands and people who are doing things in a creative way that is sustainable and with a story that I connect with.”
