Everything you need to stock the perfect home bar: tools, glasses, and spirits
Whether that's finding you the best muddler to use (or telling you what a muddler is used for) and rounding up the most versatile spirits for your cocktails, I have even the most inexperienced mixologist covered.
From cocktail tools to smooth-sipping spirits, here's everything your home bar or bar cart needs to entertain.
Bar tools
OXO Steel Single Wall Cocktail Shaker $22.49
This functional cocktail shaker has a cap that also doubles as a jigger — allowing you to measure your pours with ease.
It's completely leakproof, for even the most rigorous cocktail shakers, and weighs well under a pound for portability.
The parts are easy to separate, too, and won't require you to wrestle them apart after use.
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Beneno Wine Opener $13.99 (18% off)
In a world of electric wine openers, you must be wondering why I'm recommending this option.
Well, first off, I've had it for years and it's opened countless bottles of red wine for me — with ease.
And also, there's something just satisfying about screwing the corkscrew off yourself — I love hearing the pop when I've finally managed to wrestle it out.
This option has a great grip, and I've rarely chipped a cork on the way out. It's also a much more affordable pick compared to electric options.
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Winco Wooden Muddler $5.69
I'm all about a wooden muddler as they're easy to clean and, in my opinion, are the most durable.
I specifically use this option to gently mash fruits (especially berries) for summer cocktails.
I like the larger surface area and am fond of how efficiently this can crush any berries without completely mushing them. It's all in the amount of pressure though, so make sure not to be overly aggressive when you're muddling.
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Ice Bucket with Lid, Ice Tongs, Spoon, and Strainer $27.99
No bar cart or bar setup is complete without an ice bucket and ice tongs.
An ice bucket can keep your prosecco or white wines chilled, even outside, and the tongs make it easy to scoop just the right amount of cubes into your glass.
You'll also get a scooper and an ice strainer in this set, allowing you to store ice for longer — and say goodbye to that pesky melted water with ease.
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A Bar Above Premium Bell Jigger $19.15 (13% off)
Ever seen bartenders measure out their liquors before they pour it in the shaker? Yep, that's what a jigger is used for.
This one offers ten internal measurements, and has a stainless steel finish that makes it durable and long-lasting — it resists rust and corrosion.
It's extremely precise, and makes a great bar addition for professional and beginner mixologists alike.
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KITESSENSU Cocktail Shaker Set $36.99 (26% off)
If you don't want the hassle of buying individual tools, this cocktail shaker set has everything you need.
You'll get a Martini Shaker, Jigger, Strainer, Mixer Spoon, Muddler, Liquor Pourers, corkscrew, and ice tongs within this set. Plus, a stand to hold them all.
I also love that the set comes with an included recipe booklet, perfect for novice mixologists to test their skills.
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Glasses
JoyJolt Spirits Stemless Wine Glasses $17.95 (18% off)
A lot of wine aficionados might say you need separate glasses for red and white wines, but if you just don't have the space, stemless wine glasses can work in a pinch.
I've owned this set for a while now, and they haven't chipped, even after multiple dishwasher trips.
You'll get four glasses in this (I bought two sets) and you can even shop them in fun patterns — Hello Kitty wine glasses, anyone?
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Martini Glasses Set of 2 $19.98
From espresso martinis to dirty gin martinis, the right glass can truly elevate your drinking experience.
This set of two delicate crystal glasses will make you feel like you're running a speakeasy in your living room.
It's sturdy, has a comfortable grip, and looks good on a bar cart. It's also dishwasher safe for ease of cleaning.
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Glaskey Whiskey Glasses Set of 4 $18.99
Yes, you could get the expensive Baccarat tumblers if you've got the cash, but these Amazon dupes will do just fine — and they're literally a fraction of the cost.
You'll get four crystal glasses in this set.
Each is scratch resistant, and dishwasher safe, and has a simple, elegant look.
If for whatever reason your glasses arrive even slightly damaged, the brand will quickly issue you a replacement too.
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JBHO Champagne Glasses $29.96
Toast to your celebrations with these durable crystal glasses.
They're hand-blown, surprisingly durable, and are also dishwasher safe.
It's best for champagne and sparkling wines, and holds seven ounces of liquid.
Fill it to the brim or use it for a toast, either way these champagne flutes don't disappoint.
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Vintage Art Deco Nick and Nora Coupe Glasse $49.99
Nick & Nora glasses are not a necessity for your bar cart, but they can be used for a variety of cocktails — including martinis, gimlets, and even champagne.
I love the vintage design on these, and friends constantly ask me where I purchased them.
I specifically use them to serve Manhattans, but the sky is the limit with what you serve in them. I'd rather you buy this set than spring for martini glasses and champagne flutes, especially if you're short on space.
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Godinger Highball Drinking Glasses $22.79
Highballs are best used to serve mixed drinks — due to their larger capacity.
This clear set is dishwasher safe, durable, and has a thick base, which the brand says adds stability and keeps these glasses from shattering.
They can hold up to 14 ounces, and can even double as regular water glasses on days you're not entertaining.
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Glenfiddich 18 year old Whiskey $158
Slightly pricier than both the more economical 12-year-old, this caramel-toned whiskey is easily a bar cart favorite.
Expect notes of ripe fruit, baked apple, and oak. The flavor is deep, full, and warm — for me, it tastes like the first day of fall.
Drink it neat or use it to create an old fashioned.
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Gray Whale Gin $51.99
I love Gray Whale for its botanical flavor, featuring juniper, mint, and lime, amongst others.
It pairs really well for a summer-themed martini, and tastes great with a splash of tonic water.
I also love that the brand gives back to ocean conservation efforts, and protects the majestic Gray Whale with every purchase.
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Dobel Atelier: Animales Endémicos $253
Every bottle in this limited edition collection is hand-painted by Oaxacan artisans, featuring bright, vivid, and intricate designs.
This option is priced over $200 but it's well worth the price for its unique design, collector's quality, and of course, smooth, full flavor.
Expect hints of chocolate, agave, and dried fruits on your tongue, and a subtle finish with a hint of smoky wood.
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Ron Del Barrilito 3 stars $40.94
There's something about a rum old fashioned that just screams summer to me. Make your own with my favorite rum of choice, Ron del Barrilito.
Made in Puerto Rico, this smooth medium-bodied rum features notes of vanilla, almonds, dry fruits, and just a hint of ripe bananas.
It's just sweet enough to make it easy to drink, and leaves a lingering smoky finish on your palate long after the drink is done.
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Del Maguey Vida Mezcal $41.96
For non-mezcal drinkers, Del Maguey is a great intro to the brand.
This smoky liquor coats your palate and honestly reminds me of a deep honey and cinnamon blended together — with a hint of that smoky flavor all mezcal comes with.
Drink it neat or make a margarita out of it — yes, you can use mezcal to make margaritas too.
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Dubliner Irish Whiskey $30.84
This no-frills Irish whiskey is just what you'll crave after a long day's work.
It's a smooth sip, packed with flavors of honey and smoky peppers. The finish is silky smooth and leaves a taste of sweet fruit wrapped with honey on your palate.
As far as well-priced whiskeys go, Dubliner's bourbon cask aged whiskey is up there.
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Ketel One Vodka $29.97
I'm not much of a vodka drinker, but if I had to pick, it would always be Ketel One.
It pairs seamlessly well in a martini, and is silky smooth — making this one of the only vodkas I can truly stomach.
It has a crisp, refreshing flavor, and tastes best chilled.
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Mionetto 'Prestige' Organic Prosecco $13.54
No one does prosecco like Mionetto, and their organic prosecco is my favorite from their Prestige Collection.
It has a rich flavor with notes of ripe golden apples, honey, pear, and peach. It's fresh, and the drink of the summer.
Layer it in a spritz or sip it by itself. You and your guests won't be disappointed.
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Daily Mail
an hour ago
- Daily Mail
People left baffled by strange chair found in Hawaiian home... but the odd feature has a simple explanation
A chair with utterly strange dimensions has baffled over a thousand people who previously didn't know what it was used for. Reddit user DesertDiegel shared a photo of the piece of furniture on the forum r/whatisthisthing, where people post pictures of unknown things they want identified. The user wrote: 'What is this chair thing? Wood, small adult/child size, Found at The Plantation House by Gaylord's (Hawaii).' The chair in the image has what looks to be half a seat, with the other half being some sort of shelf. Redditors were quick to point out that what the original poster had stumbled upon was a telephone bench. More colloquially referred to as a 'gossip bench', this kind of chair allows the user to sit and have the telephone resting on the attached ledge. 'Now I feel really old... I've used one like this my entire childhood and teens. It's a phone desk,' one person wrote. 'I have one! It belonged to my great grandmother and has an extra little shelf for telephone books and notepads,' another person excitedly commented. Most telephone benches were made in the 1920s through the 1950s and were often placed in hallways of people's homes since most families only had one phone back then. As home telephones got smaller and less awkward to use, the need for telephone benches gradually waned. And when cordless telephones were invented in the 1980s, the gossip could literally be taken anywhere, making the furniture completely obsolete. However, many telephone benches are now considered antique collectors items. One made in the 1930s is being sold on Etsy for $1,195, as one Redditor pointed out. 'That price! Guess I shouldn't have dumped mine at a yard sale years ago,' someone reacted.
The Guardian
3 hours ago
- The Guardian
‘I've been stupid and I miss you': the family members who buried the hatchet after years of silence
'What happened?' Scott, 82, asked Bruce, 78, when his younger brother picked up the phone and called him after a 15-year estrangement. 'I grew up,' Bruce said. 'I've been stupid and I really miss you.' The brothers had missed a decade and a half of each other's birthdays, milestones and memories made, but here they were, talking again as though no time had passed. A quarter of the adult population describe themselves as estranged from a relative; 10% from a parent and 8% from a sibling, according to research by Karl Pillemer, professor of human development at Cornell University and author of Fault Lines: Fractured Families and How to Mend Them. But when decades pass and rifts remain unhealed, what drives family members such as Scott and Bruce – or, rather more famously, the Gallagher brothers – to repair their ruptured relationships? As children, in San Fernando valley, California, Scott and Bruce were close. 'He was protective and a great storyteller,' Bruce says. 'We'd go to the movies together and I remember hiding behind a seat at the cinema watching The Blob and waiting for Scott to tell me when to come out. We got along pretty well.' Scott had dyslexia and struggled at school, gaining less affection from their unemotional parents as a result. Bruce noticed: 'He was undervalued. Our parents never acknowledged or celebrated his achievements.' As they entered teenage years, these differences began to come between them. 'We started to have issues when I began having my own opinions,' says Bruce, now living in Santa Fe. 'I was and still am a know-it-all. I was thin-skinned and not very self-aware.' Bruce gained a PhD and worked as a substitute teacher near Berkeley, California, while Scott became a screenwriter, got married, brought up two daughters and moved to Nevada City. The brothers met up a couple of times a year but Bruce remembers, 'He would always say extremely hurtful things.' The comments festered until, during one trip in 2005, when the pair were around 60, Bruce 'blew up'. 'I'd bought us all seafood,' he remembers. 'At the end of dinner Scott said, 'This kitchen was clean, now it's dirty – you should clean it up.' It could have been anything but feeling belittled in front of my then girlfriend, it was egregious to me.' So he cut ties. Their late father had also been a screenwriter and when Scott sent a cheque containing his regular half of residuals, Bruce returned it: 'I didn't want any more connection. It was too painful.' 'He never said he had a problem with me but it was clear,' Scott remembers. 'I wasn't deeply wounded. I didn't have time to dwell on what was going on with him. I had to work and feed the family.' He imagined they would come back together someday and wondered, from time to time, if his brother was well. Bruce was 'just glad to be out of the line of fire. I don't remember missing him.' But in 2020, Bruce felt ready for change. Some years earlier he had turned down a suggestion from Scott's daughter that the pair reconnect but, with the world in lockdown, he began thinking about his relationships. 'I realised I'd been too judgmental. I'd never walked a mile in Scott's shoes. He was saying cruel things to me because I was being an ass. I was the jerk in this story.' Bruce sought advice from a psychotherapist friend about how to reconcile, then picked up the phone. When Scott heard his voice again, he remembers, 'We picked up exactly where we left off. There was no animosity. It was guilt free. We haven't had a harsh word since.' They called each other every fortnight. 'We had a hard time hanging up,' Bruce says. Six months later, he went out to visit and has done several times since. 'We've spoken a lot about our parents, who were kind and bright but not loving,' Scott says. 'Neither of us remember being kissed or hugged. Talking about it has allowed us to rediscover each other and ourselves.' Their time apart brought unexpected positives: 'We have realised we're similar in many ways. We think the same and have many of the same expressions. When we belly up to the bar together, you'd know we're brothers,' Bruce says. He feels vastly happier: 'I don't feel I lost anything. In fact, it's brought us closer than ever.' Scott agrees: 'It's all been a gain.' PIllemer says Bruce and Scott's story is typical. 'Common to most estrangements is a 'volcanic event' where pressure has built up to a single trigger, the capstone in a history of conflict or communication problems. Understanding what it signifies helps figure things out.' Those who reconcile go through a similar process, he adds. 'There has usually been some self-exploration. Often, they come to realise they played a part in the rift.' A contemplation phase follows: 'I call it anticipatory regret. They miss the person and start to think, if they don't do this, will it be too late?' For Oliver, 62, a family bereavement made him reassess the 28 years he had spent apart from his twin brother Henry (not their real names). 'I remember thinking: what if he suddenly died and I never had the chance to talk to him? I picked up the phone and counted down: 10, nine, eight, seven … thinking: shall I do it?' The two were nonidentical and had always been different: 'As twins, there's a presumption that you're cut from the same cloth. But he had his friends and interests, and I had mine. He was intellectual and introverted, and I was the opposite, more colourful.' By their teenage years, Oliver says, 'We were just two brothers living in the same house. There was a distance between us. It was hard to connect.' They moved to different cities and, at 21, Oliver emigrated. 'Whenever I came back, I would suggest we meet. I felt it was always met with an excuse.' When Henry married, Oliver says, 'I didn't want or expect to be his best man and he didn't ask. I just felt like a guest.' They headed further in different directions, speaking every few months until the early 90s when, on another trip home, Oliver asked Henry to dinner and found his excuse too painful: 'It was always me initiating things; he didn't once pick up the phone and ask how I was. Rejection is never easy but with family it hits harder.' Despondent, he thought, 'OK, I've tried.' In the almost three decades that followed, no one in the family addressed the twins' alienation: 'My parents knew but they didn't say anything; I kind of wish they had.' Oliver says he wanted to connect many times, 'but thought I was setting myself up for rejection. I learned from family members he was suffering with his own problems. There were things I wished I could share.' When, in 2009, their sister's husband died from cancer, Oliver returned to the UK for the funeral. The brothers found themselves in the same room again. 'I saw him walking up to the house. I thought: this is going to be uncomfortable for everyone.' They didn't speak but Oliver recalls, 'His wife asked, 'Do you think you'd consider calling him? I think he'd respond favourably.'' He flew home reflecting on her words and the shortness of life: 'We don't get to choose another family.' A few days later, he called Henry. 'It was like going on a first date. When we spoke I realised it's not the point to talk about what happened, why you did this or said that. I thought, no, we're going to leave that in the past; we're going to talk about the present and future.' Oliver called Henry every month: 'Part of my thought process was about accepting him for who he is and not who I want him to be. He doesn't talk about emotions whereas I'm very open. So I will pick up the phone and ask how he is because I want him as part of my life.' Henry went out to visit Oliver and now, when Oliver comes back to the UK, he stays with his brother and has got to know his niece and nephew, too. 'There's no emotion, but I have peace with that. I accept him for who he is and it's fine. We were in the womb together, we have a 62-year connection: you can't deny that.' While estrangement from siblings – or close cousins, grandparents, aunts or uncles – is upsetting, cutting off a parent or child is especially hard. 'We are less obligated to be in touch with siblings, but we are bonded to our parents,' Pillemer says. 'It is quite a big thing to say I never want to speak to you again.' That is what happened to Choi, a 45-year-old digital marketer and DJ who grew up in a God-fearing Korean immigrant family in Buenos Aires. As a boy, he feared his father. 'He was frequently physically abusive,' Choi says. 'My sister and I would count how many days he'd been quiet, then he'd snap. I felt I was living in a prison.' At 17, Choi tried to kill himself; at 18, when his father locked him out for missing a curfew, he left home. 'If I'd stayed it would have been the end of me, so I turned around, with no money and no prospects, and never said goodbye.' He was relieved to escape his father's control, but missed his mother – the two were forbidden to talk and over the next two decades saw each other only a handful of times, at Choi's sister's wedding and when he visited her, alone, at his parents' shop. 'When I went we'd have a few minutes. She'd ask a lot of questions but we couldn't have a serious talk. She would ask me to come back and apologise to my dad. I'd walk out feeling angry with her for expecting that of me.' So he stopped visiting; for 10 years, they didn't see each other at all. Then, in 2022, Choi says, 'I wanted to reconnect. My then girlfriend had cancer during the pandemic, so it was tough. When she recovered, I felt grateful and started to think about Mum and Dad.' Choi drove the four hours to his parents' home and knocked on their door. 'When Dad saw me he asked Mum, 'Who is this?'' Choi remembers. 'It was strange but not sad. I was mentally prepared for anything.' His father yelled at him, presuming he wanted money or somewhere to stay. 'When his rant ended I told him, 'I just wanted to see your face and say hello.' They invited me in and he interrogated me, but I was happy.' Choi began calling every Saturday. Conversations were 'transactional'; occasionally his father apologised for his behaviour. 'I told him I was also a bad son. I said, 'Let's not talk about the past, let's try to build a new relationship.'' But on his next visit, a few months later, his father's mood changed; he grew angry, then stopped answering his son's calls. A year later, on a Tuesday morning in February 2023, an unknown number flashed up on Choi's phone: 'It kept calling so I answered.' It was the police station in his parents' town. 'My mum was there. She'd left him and asked if I'd go to get her.' Sign up to Inside Saturday The only way to get a look behind the scenes of the Saturday magazine. Sign up to get the inside story from our top writers as well as all the must-read articles and columns, delivered to your inbox every weekend. after newsletter promotion Choi brought her to live with him. 'She cooked for us and we ate together. I got her a phone and she called family in Korea she had also been cut off from. She told me about how my father treated her and controlled everything, about his outbursts and how hard it was.' A month later, the unknown number flashed up again. 'I knew,' Choi remembers. 'He'd killed himself. 'It's hard to grieve a person like my father,' he says. But the death represented a moment of 'deep change' – one that allowed Choi to rebuild his relationship with his mother. She moved back into the family home but the pair continue to visit and speak three times a week. 'Our relationship is complex and still challenging; I want to protect her but I'm still angry about the past. She says, 'You have to let go' but it's not easy.' He admires her for leaving and, above all, 'I'm grateful to have her in my life. This is a second chance.' Reconciliation is not the right choice for everybody, Pillemer warns: 'There are situations where the relationship is dangerous or so damaging that it can be better to cut off contact.' And not everyone who attempts it gets the immediate response they had hoped for. 'The most successful strategies are where they don't give up completely and leave a door open.' When the path to reconciliation opens up, gathering information about the person from family members can be helpful. Turning up unannounced is riskier and 'not always the best approach' but for Grace, 55 (not her real name), who went 35 years without seeing or hearing from her father, it was life-changing. Grace was 10 when he had an affair and left: 'He went off to start a new life and I never saw him again. He didn't seem interested in me and we didn't have a strong connection. My mum, who was loving towards me, held a lot of animosity towards him and I felt I should hate him, but I didn't.' She remained close to relatives on his side of the family who 'went out of their way to make sure my feelings weren't hurt by mentioning him'. Their paths never crossed. It was 'a strange situation to be in' and the burden of being the girl, then woman, who didn't speak to her father was 'draining'. Grace spotted her father fleetingly 20 years later when, aged 42, she gave a reading at her grandfather's funeral. 'I expected seeing me would stimulate something in him but it didn't. I was a bit crestfallen.' Two years after that, while driving with her cousins through the town where he happened to live, one pointed to the roadside. 'There were two men chatting with newspapers,' Grace recalls. ''There's your father,' my cousin said. 'Oh yeah,' I replied, but I didn't have the faintest idea which was him. It really threw me.' Grace realised she was hungry for information about who he was and traits they shared: 'It was the elephant in the room for so long. The longer the avoidance went on, the bigger it became. I wasn't sure how I'd feel and I was also convinced Mum would see it as a betrayal.' The thought stayed with her until a couple of years later, going to a family wedding in Ireland, where her father now lived. Everyone was there but him. The next morning, without time to overthink, Grace walked to his house and sat on the doorstep: 'I thought, if I go away now, I'll never come back.' She didn't have to wait long. When he returned, he didn't recognise her at first. 'Then he said, 'You'd better come in. Do you want a cup of tea?'' They sat at the kitchen table. 'It felt surreal. I knew that if we were to have a relationship, uncomfortable topics were not to be broached. We talked about baking, feeding the birds, growing vegetables and his English pension. He asked if my mother was alive and I said, 'Yes, she's fantastic.' I felt I had to fight her corner. That's the only time we approached anything sensitive.' Overwhelmingly, the feeling was of relief. 'I needed to get rid of the feeling that part of myself was somehow amputated,' Grace says. 'As I was leaving, he hugged me and cried a little. That felt satisfying.' They settled into a pattern of Christmas cards, birthday phone calls and visits once or twice a year, always lasting an hour. She has thought a lot about why she sat on her father's doorstep that day. 'A lot of things in my life had come about through the actions or wishes of others,' she says. 'I was no longer willing to be deprived of knowing my own father because of what that might mean to them: the possibility of hurting my mother, being rejected by my father or drawing relatives' disapproval. And I couldn't hold anyone else responsible for the rift when I was the only one capable of taking the necessary step.' She wishes she had done it sooner: 'I've had problems over the years dealing with crap from my childhood. Knowing he was just a normal person and I wasn't insufficient in some way could have helped.' Her father is in his 80s now and Grace says, 'It's given me the opportunity, late in the day, to be his daughter. If he had died and I had never regained contact with him, that loss would have been awful.' For some, reconciliation does wait until the end of life. Pillimer has found that, in cases of deep, unresolved harm, these moments can have negative consequences. 'But when sincere and mutually desired, they can bring emotional closure, reduce regret and ease the grieving process for the one left behind.' It was a deathbed conversation with her own father that eventually delivered closure for Lynne, a 71-year-old lawyer based in Independence, Missouri, after the pair spent more than a decade estranged during her teens and early 20s. She was 36 when he died, aged 59, but she says, 'It was not until my dad was dying that we talked about the years spent apart.' Lynne's parents divorced when she was eight and her father moved out. 'I remember seeing him regularly at first,' she says. 'Then, when I was 13, my mother remarried, to a difficult man with several children of his own. We all moved in together. My father had problems paying child support for me, my brother and sister, so my stepfather forbade him from seeing us.' She felt her father's absence: 'Things weren't good at home. I remember thinking I just want a boyfriend to hold me when I cry. When I was older, I realised it was my father I'd wanted. In my teens, my mother made an offhand comment – 'It's good your dad's not around, it makes it easier' – and I thought: you are so wrong.' Her mother's new marriage lasted four years but the schism with her dad continued. In her late teens, Lynne turned down an offer, via a friend, to meet him. 'I was still somewhat bitter,' she says. When he had a heart attack soon after, she didn't visit: 'I feel bad now but I was resentful that he hadn't fought harder to be in my life.' They did see each other when she got married, aged 21. 'I didn't want to get married without him there, so I invited him as a guest. He didn't walk me down the aisle but we spoke, he gave me a gift and we hugged.' Three years later, she made contact again, impulsively, on Father's Day: 'I saw a card and sent it. I'd never done that before and don't remember what prompted me.' That December, he called on her birthday. Then they arranged dinner with her siblings. 'It felt warm and accepting, but we didn't talk about what had happened.' Her dad had remarried, meaning Lynne now had a half-brother, and she and her father grew close again. She, her husband and son spent Christmases in Florida, where her dad lived. He visited them, too. 'I discovered my father was very intelligent and his sense of humour was a little bit off, just like mine.' She often imagined what it had been like for him during their years apart but received answers only in his final days. He suffered a pulmonary embolism and Lynne and her siblings travelled to upstate New York, where he had moved, to be by his bedside. 'They told us he had 10 days to live,' she remembers. 'We laughed a lot and talked. He apologised for his absences. He told me the divorce had been his fault, he'd cheated, that he was proud of me for becoming a lawyer, and how much he loved me and regretted what had happened. I was sad he was dying but this felt like the best thing to come out of those circumstances. It provided a lot of closure. 'Some relationships never heal, and some people are despicable, but that was not my situation,' she adds. 'I've always thought those who hold grudges or stay resentful harm themselves most. It's so much more freeing and life-affirming to forgive.' In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on freephone 116 123, or email jo@ or jo@ In the US, you can call or text the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline on 988, chat on or text HOME to 741741 to connect with a crisis counselor. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at
Daily Mail
10 hours ago
- Daily Mail
From teen mom to raising a billionaire: How Jacklyn Bezos' selfless sacrifices over the years secured son Jeff's Amazon success
Behind every great man is a great woman, so the saying goes. And in Jeff Bezos ' case that woman was his mother Jacklyn Bezos, who died peacefully at her home this week at the age of 78. Today, her son is one of the world's wealthiest men, but his beginnings were a lot more humble. It is largely thanks to the tireless sacrifice of his mother that he is able to sit atop his Amazon empire. It is a sentiment not lost on the billionaire CEO, who acknowledged Jacklyn's monumental place in his life in an emotional post announcing her death. 'After a long fight with Lewy Body Dementia, she passed away today, surrounded by so many of us who loved her — her kids, grandkids, and my dad,' Jeff wrote. 'I know she felt our love in those final moments. We were all so lucky to be in her life. I hold her safe in my heart forever.' While it may have been Bezos' luck to have her as a mother, it was Jacklyn's grit and belief in her son which turned her fortunes around from struggling teen mom to one of the first investors in one of the biggest companies in the world. Jacklyn was born in Washington, DC, and grew up in Albuquerque, New Mexico, where, as a high school student, she met Jeff's biological father, Ted Jorgensen, according to the Bezos Scholars Program. She gave birth to the Amazon founder at 17 years old shortly after marrying Jorgensen, but the two divorced shortly after. 'My mom, Jackie, had me when she was a 17-year-old high school student in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Being pregnant in high school was not popular in Albuquerque in 1964. It was difficult for her,' Jeff said in a 2020 congressional hearing. 'When they tried to kick her out of school, my grandfather went to bat for her. After some negotiation, the principal said, "OK, she can stay and finish high school, but she can't do any extracurricular activities, and she can't have a locker". 'My grandfather took the deal, and my mother finished high school, though she wasn't allowed to walk across the stage with her classmates to get her diploma.' As a young, single mom, she started taking night classes while also working at a bank during the day. 'Determined to keep up with her education, she enrolled in night school, picking classes led by professors who would let her bring an infant to class,' Jeff said. 'She would show up with two duffel bags—one full of textbooks, and one packed with diapers, bottles, and anything that would keep me interested and quiet for a few minutes.' Her shift at the bank overlapped with a young Cuban immigrant, Miguel 'Mike' Bezos, where the two met and fell in love. The couple eventually married, and Miguel adopted Jeff. They also had two children together, Christina and Mark. Jacklyn and Miguel went on to invest just under $250,000 into Amazon in 1995 to help their son with his new company. 'They weren't making a bet on Amazon or the concept of a bookstore on the internet. They were making a bet on their son,' Jeff said. 'I told them that I thought there was a 70 percent chance they would lose their investment, and they did it anyway.' The sum that they lent him was considered not just a huge amount but also a massive risk, as people were still skeptical of the internet. But the gamble paid off, as their son is now worth over $243 billion, while Amazon is a $2 trillion company. Bezos spoke about the original investment his parents gave him at a 2015 event, recalling telling them: 'I want you to know how risky this is. 'Because I want to come home at dinner for Thanksgiving and I don't want you to be mad at me.' It is unclear how much stock they still hold in the company; they donated just under 600,000 shares to the Bezos Family Foundation from 2001 to 2016, according to filings. In 2022, Bezos helped his parents snap up a six-bedroom, seven-bathroom waterfront Miami mansion in 2022 for $34 million. The property was bought by a Delaware company linked to Bezos' parents with the help of a $5 million loan from the Bank of America. Jeff added to his own tribute: 'Her adulthood started a little bit early when she became my mom at the tender age of 17. 'That couldn't have been easy, but she made it all work. She pounced on the job of loving me with ferocity, brought my amazing dad onto the team a few years later, and then added my sister and brother to her list of people to love, guard, and nourish.
