"Crosswords Rock!" - April 12, 2019

[BethA]

I got stuck for a little bit, too focused on the title, CROSSwords rock. After pretty quickly spotting all the ORE, I was thinking I had to look at the vertical crossings, particularly with the R, but couldn’t get anywhere. After a little break, came back and reviewed the title and the special hint clue including ON the rocks, and got my DOH moment!

Briefly considered looking for drinks with ICE embedded in the name, but not even long enough to search for one.

Thanks again to Brian for giving us a place to write about all this!

[jenirvin]

After years of being "Jennifer I." due to the popularity of the name in my generation, I'm amazed I remain the only Jennifer in the group. YIPPEE!! I finally get to be "Just Jennifer"!

[hcbirker]

I just noticed that WSJ has created a comments section for the post mortem on their site, but I don't think it's quite working yet. Check it out. (Heidi)

[MikeMillerwsj]

Here's this week's report, also posted at wsj.com/puzzles in the traditional puzzle homeland:

This week's contest was a crowdpleaser--1480 entries, nearly 90% correct. We had a wide menu of drinks among the incorrect answers, led by SINGAPORE SLING (34, any explanation why?), and 4 each for TOM COLLINS, LONG ISLAND ICED TEA, and MARGARITA.

Congrats to this week's winner: Kelly Reidy of Brooklyn, NY!

[Bob cruise director]

Here's this week's report, also posted at wsj.com/puzzles in the traditional puzzle homeland:

This week's contest was a crowdpleaser--1480 entries, nearly 90% correct. We had a wide menu of drinks among the incorrect answers, led by SINGAPORE SLING (34, any explanation why?), and 4 each for TOM COLLINS, LONG ISLAND ICED TEA, and MARGARITA.

Congrats to this week's winner: Kelly Reidy of Brooklyn, NY!

The Singapore Sling answer was because it is about the only drink with "ORE" in the name

[tim1217]

The contest answer is OLD-FASHIONED. The clue for 62-Down suggests looking for rocks, and there are four instances of commonly-seen-in-crosswords ORE in the theme entries. The letters directly over these spell the contest answer.

Does anyone drink these anymore? The only reason that I had heard of Old Fashioned is that my parents drank them in the 50's

I think; "Does anyone drink these anymore?" falls in line with; "Who the hell is Teri Garr?!?

[tim1217]

I got the answer fairly quickly but got stuck down a rabbit hole looking for 'types of rocks' in the grid. Because it was a MG, I figured there were 3+ steps involved (over thinking it as usual). I can't tell you how many times in the process I thought about OREs being mined from underground and actually seeing the word OLD above the first entry but never taking it any farther. Then one last time and bongo, there it was.

[DennyB]

Is this going to be the site where Mike Miller reveals the winners every Monday for the WSJ Contest crossword? The WSJ crossword blog site stopped posting after about 68 posts. Hmmm? I even subscribed to the free 3 month digital subscription

[Meg]

Is this going to be the site where Mike Miller reveals the winners every Monday for the WSJ Contest crossword? The WSJ crossword blog site stopped posting after about 68 posts. Hmmm? I even subscribed to the free 3 month digital subscription

DennyB, It looks like Mike will be posting on both forums (what a nice guy!). If you look at the wsj puzzle site, there is now a separate post for contest discussion. Mike put the results there.

[Joedbee]

I saw the four OREs fairly quickly but first mined (removed) the OREs, trying to use the letters remaining on either side to create an answer but that led nowhere. I then thought that when you mine an ore, the ceiling may collapse so looked at the 'ceilings' above the OREs that led to the answer. I didn't include the hyphen either.

[BarbaraK]

Is this going to be the site where Mike Miller reveals the winners every Monday for the WSJ Contest crossword? The WSJ crossword blog site stopped posting after about 68 posts. Hmmm? I even subscribed to the free 3 month digital subscription

The new commenting system only allows comments for 48 hours, so after Saturday at 4PM, it won't be possible to post there. Mike created a new "article" just for comments about the contest this morning.

Enjoy your free 3 month subscription. It really is a great newspaper.

[31 Down]

Today I did a puz, co-constructed by Frank Longo, from one of the Fireball books. As it turned out, it used a very similar mechanism as this meta - very clever and punny. It was a bear though since the obvious answers weren't fitting in the grid so some gimmick was at work. Took me awhile to figure.

These xword constructors are brilliant and perhaps sadistic as well!

[MaineMarge]

I’m not a very sophisticated cocktail drinker- could probably not put names to more than 10. Fortunately I knew one that begins with “old” so when that jumped out at me over the first ore, I was on it. Without having to dig down any rocky rabbit holes.

[Inca]

I saw the four OREs fairly quickly but first mined (removed) the OREs, trying to use the letters remaining on either side to create an answer but that led nowhere. I then thought that when you mine an ore, the ceiling may collapse so looked at the 'ceilings' above the OREs that led to the answer. I didn't include the hyphen either.

...served ON the rocks

[Joedbee]

I saw the four OREs fairly quickly but first mined (removed) the OREs, trying to use the letters remaining on either side to create an answer but that led nowhere. I then thought that when you mine an ore, the ceiling may collapse so looked at the 'ceilings' above the OREs that led to the answer. I didn't include the hyphen either.

...served ON the rocks

I understand and saw that confirmation after I had derived an answer via a different thought process that, maybe not intended by the puzzle-maker, still worked. Different strokes for different folks!

[DBMiller]

Did anyone else notice the two "ice cubes" in the puzzle? I noted two squares of 4, that contained the letters I, C, and E in addition to a fourth letter. One was H, the other W, and I wasted way too much time trying to make Harvey Wallbanger be the answer.