Stock Your Home Bar Without Going Broke

If every guy had the time and money, we'd all build full-scale Irish pubs in our basements, with Guinness on draught and high-end whiskey flowing like water. Fortunately, you don't need to strike it rich to create a killer home bar.

"A great home bar, like most things a discerning man chooses, is about simplicity, authenticity and timelessness," says Tobin Ellis, former head bartender for Caesars Palace and the current principal consultant and owner of BarMagic of Las Vegas. "All you need is a collection of basic, but quality spirits; a small pantry of specialty ingredients and tools; some fresh fruit; a couple books; some ice and glasses; and you'll be channeling your inner Don Draper in no time."

How do you get set up in style without breaking the bank? Well, you probably don't want to just walk into a liquor store and start grabbing everything off the shelves. Ellis recommends adding these essentials to your home bar shopping list:

SPIRITS:

Ford's Gin, Four Roses Bourbon, Redemption Rye, Don Q Rum (light), Ron Zacapa Rum (dark), Punt y Mes Vermouth (sweet), Tequila Forteleza or Milagro Silver Tequila, Dolin Dry Vermouth (dry), Campari, and Tito's Vodka.  

MIXERS:

Sugar, agave nectar, fresh lemons, limes, oranges, angostura bitters, and ginger beer.

BAR TOOLS:

"For the man who likes his expensive toys, there is a world of nifty, respectable bar gadgets from $60 japanese spoons to $600 leather bar bags," Ellis says. "For the rest of us, you can buy everything you need for about $50."  Stick with online merchants like Amazon and Barproducts.com, or your local restaurant supply store, and you'll save a bundle.

Here's what Ellis suggests picking up: a 2-piece or 3-piece shaker ($7-15); a pint glass or mixing glass ($2-10); an "elbow" citrus press ($12-20); a few 285-50 metal speed pours ($6 ttl); two jiggers: a 1/2+1 oz. and a 3/4+1.5oz. ($4 for both); 3 strainers: hawthorne, julep, and tea/fine/conical ($6 for all 3); a bar spoon ($2-6); a "y-peeler" ($4); a muddler ($5); a knife; and a cutting board.  

GLASSWARE:

Browse for bar glassware online, and you may experience sticker shock. Getting all the requisite glass shapes (martini, highball, old-fashioned, etc.) can feasibly set you back hundreds of dollars. But Ellis thinks that's a waste of time. You can find everything you need at your local thrift store. "For about $20 you'll have a vintage set of cocktail glasses that will look amazing," Ellis says. "And more importantly, they'll fit the bill for serving up the classics."

BOOKS:

Ellis recommends just two: Salvatore Calabrese's Classic Cocktails and Dale DeGroff's The Craft of the Cocktail. "They have all the recipes, tips, tricks, and techniques you'll need to be off to the races," he says. 

With this set-up, you should be able to make everything from a Martini to a Manhattan, an Old Fashioned to a Margarita, a Negroni to a Moscow Mule. Sure, you may not have a fancy basement pub like Paul Rudd. But Ellis insists that a great home bar can exist just about anywhere. 

"Dump out your junk drawer and make it into a cocktail drawer," he says. "Yes, women are impressed by a man that can cook. But nobody got lucky after a couple of quiches. Learn how to whip up some classic cocktails at home and thank me later."

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The Secret Ingredient to Success

Wes Welker is in the pool--but not in a chill way. The Broncos wideout squats in 4 feet of water and then explodes up like a deranged salmon. He does it over and over again as Adam Boily, his trainer, paces the pool's edge barking encouragement.

Welker arrived at 7:30 a.m. at this random swimming pool behind a random time-share complex in Florida. He'll do an hourlong workout before the pool opens and the resident retirees settle into their chaises.

All this month, Welker is prepping for his 11th NFL season by working on "the fast twitch," as he says. "I'm teaching my muscles to move as fast as they can. I need to get off the line of scrimmage and burst, and get in and out of cuts." The water adds resistance, he says, and gets him "off the joints" for a better recovery.

From the pool, Welker hops into his black Yukon and drives to Boily's gym, Bommarito Performance Systems. The facility's program is big on something called MAT--muscle activation techniques. The two men move around the gym as Welker busily switches it up from box jumps (he leaps with both feet from a dead rest onto a 50-inch wooden box) to below-knee clean pulls (he jerks a 240-pound loaded barbell--and both feet leave the ground) to single-leg deadlifts (he lifts a 66-pound hand weight while standing on the opposite leg).

This is how Welker prepares for Broncos training camp, which is almost a month away. "Camp should be easy," he says. "Football should be easy. The training should be hard." He's been at it long enough to know that if he's not in peak physical condition, or if he's babying an injury, his mental game suffers as much as his performance does. After jumping out of the pool this morning, he made an offhand observation to Boily: "If you feel good, you can think about playing good."

Wes Welker has always been a hard-charging guy who plays spectacular football. But for years, football didn't exactly love him back. In high school in Oklahoma, he was the star receiver--and rusher and kicker and punt returner. But when the time came for scholarships, he had to wait for a last-minute offer from Texas Tech University. Why? Because he was 5'9"? No matter. He'd show 'em. In his last year at Texas Tech, he set a Big 12 record for receptions per game and NCAA career records for punt returns and punt-return yardage. Surely those stats would guarantee him a spot on an NFL squad.

He went undrafted.

He had failed the "measurables." Maybe the scouts didn't like his height, or his speed in the 40-yard dash, but clearly they were not measuring the right things.

There were 256 supposedly hot prospects drafted by NFL teams in 2004, including 31 wide receivers. Where are those 31 receivers now? They're mostly gone from the game. Gone and not remembered. The only big name still in the league is Larry Fitzgerald Jr.

So it goes. Wes Welker--today a five-time Pro Bowl pick, a guy with a record five seasons of 105 receptions, a guy with the most receiving yards in a six-season span in NFL history--Wes Welker had to free-agent his way onto the San Diego Chargers back in 2004. He got cut, landed with the Dolphins, and then in 2007 joined the New England Patriots, where he clicked with Tom Brady. Last season he joined Peyton Manning in Denver. His contract pays him $6 million a year, which is a comfortable payday for most people but actually well below the salaries for the NFL's top-paid wide receivers. As the Bleacher Report said of him earlier this year: "He is one of the greatest steals--at any position--in NFL history."

You have to wonder: How did the chowderheads at the Scouting Combine miss this guy? And how was he able to keep believing in himself? Despite the setbacks, he has persevered. He's what his coach, John Fox, has described as "very gritty."

Grit. Where did Welker find it? Can you and I have it too?

Let's define the term. Grit has nothing to do with Southern breakfast food; no, it is not a single serving of grits. It is, however, an authentically American concept--a slang word dating back to the early 1800s. If you have grit, you have the toughness and tenacity to see a goal through, with an added dash of resourcefulness and pluck to help overcome setbacks. You have stamina and persistence. You have bravery and backbone. You're someone who can git 'er done.

Grit is the theme of some recent stories, like the movie Gravity, and one of world's oldest stories, The Odyssey. The word is often preceded by the word "true," most notably in Charles Portis's 1968 novel True Grit, which focused on a 14-year-old girl with more of it than you or I or John Wayne will ever have. There's a climactic scene where she's fallen in a snake pit and has to prop herself up with a corpse bone to keep from plunging into a cave below; bats are brushing against her legs, and a rattler bites her hand ... I'll stop there.

Grit is not to be confused with talent. In fact, grit is what you're left with when you don't have talent. If your parents have no money and you have neither a standout skill nor a high IQ, well, there's always grit. It's the great equalizer.

Whatever your gift or aptitude or advantage, grit is the stuff that will help you make full use of it. Grit turns potential into accomplishment. When you look back, grit will be what led you to fulfill your "early promise." You achieve your goals--even if nobody else understands that you will be a Hall of Fame wide receiver someday.

Here's the key question: How many times have you regretted not sticking with something, not hanging in there until your efforts bore fruit? And its flip side: How many times have you regretted sticking with something for far too long, throwing time and money into a bad bet? Most men will say that their regrets are piled up on the side of quitting too soon. If you're still young and don't feel that yet, you will--unless you score well on the "grit test."

Something beyond I!--that's what inspired Angela Duckworth to begin testing for grit. A research psychologist, she got her Ph.D. at the University of Pennsylvania, where she studied under Martin E.P. Seligman, Ph.D., founder of the positive psychology movement. She joined a group of researchers who were exploring the character traits that abound in happy, productive, mentally healthy people. In a 2007 paper, she noted that intelligence was the best-documented predictor of achievement but then asked, "Why do some individuals accomplish more than others of equal intelligence?" Her conclusion: They possess more grit.

She came by that conclusion after surveying 1,218 freshman cadets who entered West Point in July 2004. Upon arrival, the cadets were given a brief questionnaire that asked for their reactions to statements like "I often set a goal but later choose to pursue a different one." You and I would call it a quiz; psychologists call it a "self-report measure." Duckworth and her colleagues had devised it to assess grit (or, more accurately, a person's perception of his or her own grit), which they defined as "perseverance and passion for long-term goals." Here, take the test yourself: See upenn.app.box.com/12itemgrit. I scored a middling 3.5 out of 5.

But back to West Point: About one in 20 cadets drop out during that first grueling summer, known as "Beast Barracks." Notably, the cadets who'd done well on Duckworth's Grit Scale were disproportionately not among them. Cadets with higher-than-average scores were over 60 percent more likely to complete the summer than cadets who didn't score as well. Two years later, Duckworth repeated the experiment on 1,308 members of the entering class of 2010; again, their grit scores helped predict their retention.

Duckworth also gave the Grit Scale test to 138 of her own undergrads. Those who scored high in grit did better academically than their peers, even though the researchers noted a connection between higher grit scores and lower SAT scores. "Among relatively intelligent individuals," Duckworth says, "those who are less bright than their peers compensate by working harder and with more determination."

So what's the bottom line? True grit is a real thing, not just a nostalgic old-school ideal, and people who have more of it go farther in this world. In an interview last year, Duckworth said, "Grit predicts success. Grit is not the only determinant of success; opportunity and talent matter too. But on average, grittier people turn out to be more successful than others, particularly in very challenging situations."

At the Duckworth Lab, scientists like Claire Robertson-Kraft, Ph.D.(c), are at a turning point. "Over the past decade, the research has shown that grit is very predictive of success in a variety of challenging fields," she says. "We have a solid base of research on the importance of grit and are now transitioning into research on how to build grit."

Although gritty research is a long way from reaching conclusions, the early wisdom is tilting toward these avenues of advice:

Set a goal.

Goal setting is second nature to gritty people; they make plans to accomplish what is most important to them. And they don't obsess over the difficulty; if anything, they underplay the work involved. And they begin their pursuit without fuss or delay. Early in the novel True Grit, Mattie Ross travels to Fort Smith to retrieve her father's body. She arranges for an undertaker to ship his coffin home for burial; he asks if she would like to kiss her father goodbye. "No," she replies gruffly, "put the lid on it." She has already set her sights on rough justice.

Another study of West Point cadets suggests you'll be more successful in reaching your goal--say, learning to play guitar--if your motives are primarily internal ("... because I like rock music") rather than as a means to an end ("... I want chicks to dig me").

Practice, practice, practice.

That's the message of ongoing research out of Duckworth's lab. "Students think talent is all that matters," one of her studies notes. "You rarely see other people practice, but nearly all famous people say that practice is what led to their success."

What K. Anders Ericsson, Ph.D., calls "deliberate practice" is not play or performance time but rather activities designed to improve specific aspects of performance. It means working on your weaknesses, working that sweet spot at the edge of your abilities. It involves frustration, concentration, repetition, and expert feedback. And it looks exactly like Welker's morning with his trainer.

Learn to be optimistic.

Gritty people are optimistic people. When an optimistic guy suffers a setback, he thinks of it as temporary and limited in scope. He thinks that with just a bit more effort, he can get over the hump. He may blame someone else for his misfortune. A pessimist, on the other hand, attributes bad events to big, overpowering causes that have now ruined everything forever and ever. He "catastrophizes." And whether it's his own fault or not, he tends to blame himself.

"It's easy to go to that place," Welker says. "You've got to change your thought process: You're tougher than that. Let's go. Come on. You've got to talk to yourself."

Expect difficulty.

We have a Pollyanna problem in American culture--we want to believe that positive thinking alone will carry us to our goal. Office cubicles and school hallways throughout the nation are emblazoned with sayings like "Dream it, believe it, achieve it!" The trouble is, this is exactly the wrong sort of motivation for children and adults alike. "Wishful thinking is, alas, exactly that," concludes a recent Duckworth study of 77 fifth-graders at an urban middle school. The "positive thinking" approach was tested against a more nuanced program in which children were prodded to consider obstacles that would stand in their way and then to make a plan to circumvent those obstacles. Those children went on to improve their grades, attendance, and conduct significantly more than the children who were encouraged to indulge in best outcome fantasies. In other studies, empty positivity has been shown to produce only greater distress, dissatisfaction, and dysfunction.

Don't become distracted. We live in what Internet entrepreneur Joe Kraus has called a "culture of distraction." Can you imagine Mattie Ross in today's world? Teenagers in the United States average 3,300 texts a month. That doesn't leave much focus for chasing outlaws.

In a Duckworth Lab study of more than 1,300 seniors in urban high schools across the country, students sat at a computer and were given the choice between solving incredibly boring math problems, which were displayed on the left side of the screen, or watching entertaining videos or playing a game, displayed on the right side. As it turned out, those students who were most dedicated to completing the boring tasks were 67 percent more likely to be enrolled in college a year later.

After the Bommartio workout, Welker invites me out for gluten-free pancakes. We grab a booth at the local pancake joint and start talking about his grit. Would he like to take Duckworth's Grit Scale? I slide it across the table; of course he's game. He gets a 4 out of 5, which makes me wonder more about the Grit Scale than about Welker. This guy should be off the charts. Maybe grit doesn't explain everything.

Make no mistake: Wes Welker has skills. He is not the football hero who got where he is by sheer willpower. His athletic abilities are awesome to behold; on the field he has brains, focus, and eye-blink reflexes. In the gym he moves through the stations with fiery dispatch. He has, and always had, deep reserves of physical energy. At age 3 he climbed a tree to get onto the roof of his house, and his parents were calling him a "hellion." A year later he began playing soccer. Welker didn't start with football until sixth grade; then he played both sports through high school.

"There was no walk-through for me," he says of his days on what others call the "practice" field. "I would tell the coaches: 'I only have one speed.'" What he did do in those years, a lot, was throw up. That's how hard he pushed himself on the field.

Welker has another quality that no one knows how to measure: intense competitiveness. "Even in practices, I didn't want anybody else to beat me on any sprint, ever," he recalls. Today, he says, that translates into a desire to prove himself in every play of every game. To dominate, to use one of his favorite words. To be "uncoverable." "That's my mindset," he says. "That's what I think about when I'm training and getting ready." And when all this training is a summer memory? When he's out on the field this fall? "My thought process is, I'm gonna kill this guy.'"

Spoken like a young firebrand. Except he's not. Welker may be only 33, but as he enters his 11th season, only one other Bronco on the roster--Peyton Manning--has more experience. Yet I cannot get Welker to talk about life after football. He is not about to get distracted by "new ideas and projects," as the Grit Scale quiz puts it. His career in football is a long-term goal that gets longer every year. If you want to measure him by his career receptions, he's right up there in the mid-800s with Larry Fitzgerald Jr.

In another two years, Welker has a chance to break 1,000 catches. He thinks it will happen, "as long as these ankles and knees stay together and I can keep on playing and enjoying it." That would be amazing. Hall of Fame amazing.

Meanwhile, all those young players on the Broncos roster are seeking his advice. And the one bit of wisdom he frequently imparts has to do with shaking off a bad play. "Young players, they're on such a big stage, and bad things happen," he says. "I tell them, 'The last play doesn't matter anymore. It's the next one. So don't let a bad play become another bad play.' You've just got to get rid of it and say 'It happens.' Move on to the next one. And do better next time."

I think they got an important lesson in grit. And so did we.

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The trip that changed everything

The trip that changed everything.

A significant anniversary just passed without us realizing it until last week. It was 10 years ago in June that we ventured to Southeast Asia for the very first time. It was the first “big trip” we took together overseas, one that changed us forever.

To this day, our time in Malaysia remains as the most meaningful and impactful adventure we’ve ever had.

What made this trip so special was that it was not a typical vacation or holiday. It was the first time we spent a sizeable amount of time exploring a foreign region together, with no set plans or itinerary. It was a transformational experience and the first time we felt like true travelers.

We ended up in Southeast Asia because Nicole accepted a 4 month student exchange program at the Universiti Sains Malaysia, located on the island of Penang, just south of Georgetown. This meant finding room mates and an apartment in a very different environment.

Reflecting on that trip got me thinking about the power of travel and how it can positively impact the way we think, act and feel.

Everything about that trip to Malaysia felt larger than life. The smells, the sounds, the street level chaos… our senses were kicked into overdrive the moment we stepped out of the airport.

Before arriving in Penang, we had an image of SE Asia that was highly inaccurate.

Our ignorance was mostly driven by our inexperience with the world (we were in our early 20’s) and our fear of being so far away from home.

Remember, this was back in 2004, a time before Google Maps, smartphones and social media. Information was not as readily available as it is today (though I flip flop as to whether that’s good or bad). Back then, we relied almost exclusively on old Lonely Planet guide books, dated television programs and the advice of hungover backpackers.

Our first few days in Malaysia was a struggle.

The humidity was unbearable, our stomachs had trouble digesting the food, the streets were loud and obnoxious and the locals stared at us relentlessly.

This was also the first time we witnessed real poverty. Dilapidated old colonial buildings sat amongst piles of garbage and bubbling streams of black sewage water. It was complete culture shock.

We felt homesick and out of place. I vividly remember feeling like we had made a mistake and even considered changing my return flight home. 

But, as each day passed, we became more and more comfortable with our surroundings and we began to embrace the opportunity. In time, we grew to love those dusty, humid, chaotic streets.

Many of the exchange students lived in the same apartment building, so each night we would gather by the swimming pool to socialize over a few drinks (that’s the pool in the above picture).

Read more - Reflections: International Student Exchange Experience in Malaysia

Inevitably, a few drinks would turn into a few more and we’d often end up at the local hawker center late at night. Residents and shop owners would often join us to learn about our country and practice their English. They were just as curious about us as we were about them.

It was these simple moments, eating spicy noodles and drinking cold Tiger beer with a group of European exchange students, that left the biggest impression on us.

Now, the philosophical world traveler in me feels the need to describe these moments as rich cultural experiences, but, truth be told, we were more interested in partying and having crazy adventures than learning about Malaysia’s history, religion and social challenges. The cultural education was a convenient bonus.

After a few weeks of excessive “good times”, the reality of long-term travel began to set in. Typically we would be on a return flight home after a week or two away, so the thought of several months seemed like an eternity.

But we had a few months in Malaysia, so we started to develop a routine.

Nicole cleverly scheduled her classes from Tuesday to Thursday, which gave us 4 day weekends. When she was in class, I worked on her homework at the Internet cafe across the street from the university. This gave us the opportunity to leave Penang on the weekends to explore neighboring regions, without worry about project research or writing papers. Hopefully her professors aren’t reading this blog post.

One experience that stood out was the trip we took to the Perhentian Islands.

We heard about the tiny tropical islands from another student who had spent a week on Perhentian Besar getting her PADI open water dive certification. It didn’t take much convincing after we saw a few of her photos.

The Perhentian Islands are located 10 miles off the northeastern coast of the Malaysian Peninsula, just south of the Thai border. For perspective, see the map below – the red star on the left is Penang and the red pin on the right is the Perhentian Islands.

Geographically, they didn’t appear to be that far from each other, so we thought the journey would be fairly straightforward.

This was our first taste of “no itinerary” travel.

Feeling adventurous, we made our way to the bus station in Penang and spent the better part of an hour trying to find the right bus. The “bus terminal” was really just a series of retail stores on the side of a road.

The only option we had that day was an overnight bus that would take approximately 10 hours. It departed at 9:00 PM so we assumed it would arrive in Kuala Besut around 7:00 AM. This was also our first overnight bus experience in Asia, so we had no idea that drivers like to crank up the A/C to the point of freezing. We were unprepared and did not bring a sweater or blanket. Sleep did not happen that night.

At around 5:00 AM the bus driver stopped at a dark, dusty intersection in a sketchy town. There was only one street light, which made for a creepy vibe. He flicked on the lights and began shouting at the remaining passengers. The bus had dropped off many people along the way and the only passengers left were other backpackers, obviously headed to the same island destination.

We could not understand what he was saying but it was clear that he wanted us to get off the bus. He opened the storage compartment underneath the bus and began unloading several over-sized backpacks.

“Pulau Perhentian, yes?” he said with a devilish grin.

“Yes. But where do we catch the boat?” we replied, thoroughly confused and not impressed that our backpacks were thrown on the dusty road.

He smiled and nodded. He clearly did not understand.

Fortunately, one of the passengers could speak Malay, so he translated. Apparently we had to wait at this dusty intersection in Jerteh for 2 hours to catch a local bus to the ferry terminal. That was not a part of the plan. We made it very clear when we purchased our bus tickets that Kuala Besut was the final destination. There was no mention of a bus transfer.

Apparently it’s quite common for bus drivers to stop at Jerteh instead of driving all the way to Kuala Besut. We were confused and anxious. The streets did not look friendly at that hour and we were all very tired. We teamed up with the other backpackers and waved some money at the bus driver, “Can you take us to Kuala Besut?”

Not surprisingly, he quickly obliged and accepted the money. We got the feeling we were not the first tourists to pay more for ‘the extra distance’.

We finally arrived at the Kuala Besut ferry terminal around 6:30 AM. Tired and cranky, we went to the ticket window and learned that boat was not supposed to leave until 9:00 AM.

Still feeling confident from our recent negotiating success, we managed to convince the boat driver to depart early because our group now totaled 11 backpackers. It became clear that transportation availability is highly negotiable in Malaysia.

After 12 hours of sketchy bus and boat travel we finally arrived.

We were warned that beach front accommodations booked up fast so we made a reservation the week before. This was a smart play because there was very little available for the travel companions we met on the bus (they just arrived and hoped for the best).

 This private bungalow was our home for a week. No hot water but that patio was gold.

This was the view from the balcony of our private bungalow.

The beach view to the left of our bungalow…

… and this is the view to the right.

There were no crowds. We had much of the island to ourselves.

The Perhentian Islands are the perfect tropical island paradise.

Clear blue water, silky white coral sand, tall swaying palm trees, wooden bungalows directly on the beach. There was even a small reef right on the beach. Each evening, we would gather on the beach and eat freshly caught seafood with our toes in the sand.

It’s one of those special places that you never want to leave.

Tropical beach life aside, what made that trip to the Perhentian Islands so memorable was that we had to challenge ourselves to get there. We had to piece together the journey with limited or inaccurate information.

Things did not go according to plan and we had to find creative ways to overcome the unexpected obstacles. We had to accept being uncomfortable and vulnerable. We had to rely on the kindness of people and trust that everything was going to be okay.

It wasn’t always easy, but the most rewarding things in life rarely are.

It taught us that travel really is about the travel. It wasn’t the perfect beach that left the strongest impression. It was navigating the confusing bus terminal and finding the right bus ticket. It was that anxious moment on a dusty, deserted road at 5:00 AM in the middle of nowhere. It was connecting with other travelers faced with the same dilemma and finding a solution, together.

Looking back, it was that experience in Malaysia that laid the fountain for future backpacking trips to South America, India, the Middle East and Eastern Europe. It introduced us to a ‘choose your own adventure’ style of travel that forever changed the way we approach our travels.

Your turn! Tell us about the trip that changed you forever.

 

The trip that changed everything is a post from: Traveling Canucks

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