Stats: The puzzle page was loaded 355 times. 57 visitors had a go at it. 42 solvers completed the puzzle and the bonus forms. The remaining solved it partly. Only 21 solvers got the full score.
Cryptic K – Not Kosher!<<< Click Here for the Puzzle Post
Here is the solution grid:
Bonus Questions:
Q1 to 7: Seven thematic entries (one of which spans two lights)
Ans: There are eight thematic entries as highlighted above. IRISH COFFEE (which spans two lights) plus any six of PUNCH, SANGRIA, SIDECAR, FIREBALL, MANHATTAN, EGGNOG and FIREFLY
NOTE: The setter has agreed to award points for FLAGSHIP which has been identified as an acceptable theme answer by a couple of solvers. This post and leaderboard have been revised after the initial publication, due to this correction.
Q8: Decipher the title (Not scored)
Ans: The Title – Cryptic K – “COCKTAIL”. It’s not kosher because it should actually be cock’s tail. Also, not kosher because the title should ideally be Cocktails. (None of the solvers gave a complete answer)
Annotations
| # | CLUE | SOLUTION | ANNOTATION |
| 1A | About a politician on American college grounds (6) | CAMPUS | C A MP US |
| 5A | Hope lab’s managed to get snap of periodic comet (4,4) | HALE BOPP | HOPELAB*<P |
| 9A | Better profits from pub located in annexe near shop’s entrance (8) | WINNINGS | W(INN)ING S |
| 10A | Company initially fixed charge for drink (6) | COFFEE | CO F(ixed) FEE |
| 11A | Bird and one who annoys bird (3,7) | HEN HARRIER | Bird – HEN One who annoys – HARRIER |
| 12A | Need support? Switch sides (4) | LACK | Support is RACK (R to L) |
| 13A | Exotic place basically making unique keto dessert (4,4) | PLUM CAKE | (PLACE M U K)* |
| 16A | English girl going crazy without a drink (6) | EGGNOG | (E G GOING – I) * |
| 17A | Stalks Rock Hudson (6) | HOUNDS | (HUDSON)* |
| 19A | Energetic person set alight party (8) | FIREBALL | set alight = FIRE BALL (party) |
| 21A | In the beginning, denied access to all documents (4) | DATA | Acrostic |
| 22A | Initially, doctor in medical institute treats unusual skin inflamation (10) | DERMATITIS | (D I M I TREATS)* |
| 25A | Still unmoved – a time for love? (6) | STATIC | ST(-o+A T)IC |
| 26A | Mark finally becomes joint leader (8) | FLAGSHIP | FLAG (become)S HIP (joint) |
| 27A | Colour of bird essentially blue/ orange not a bit of yellow (4-4) | IRON GREY | (b)IR(d) ( ORANGE – a)* Y(ellow) |
| 28A | The city leaves one disturbed and irritable (6) | TETCHY | (THE CITY – I)* |
| 2D | Put up partly blurred image of compound (5) | AMIDE | Reverse telescopic |
| 3D | Quibble about Haaland’s first kick (5) | PUNCH | PUN C H(aaland) |
| 4D | Hummed tune over a drink (7) | SANGRIA | SANG AIR<< |
| 5D | Unsympathetic crowd, not very nasty (7) | HOSTILE | HOST (-V) ILE |
| 6D | Author of cerebral novel – not British (2,5) | LE CARRE | (CEREBRAL – B)* |
| 7D | Bizzare gabble, hollow fluff – a deliberately obscure language used in official documents (9) | BAFFLEGAB | ( GABBLE FF A)* |
| 8D | Porsche crashed next to Old London’s primary educational institution (9) | PRESCHOOL | PORSCHE* O L |
| 14D | Take care of attractive woman drinking at the back (4,5) | LOOK AFTER | LOOK(AFT)ER |
| 15D | Person that’s developing a new burrough in New York (9) | MANHATTAN | MAN (THAT)* A N |
| 18D | Recalled chase by Dharmendra in Sholay basically, in this motorcycle attachment (7) | SIDECAR | RACE D I S<< |
| 19D | Start race in Beetle (7) | FIREFLY | FIRE FLY |
| 20D | Record likely to change again (7) | READAPT | READ APT |
| 23D | Extremely nice, it’s designed like a diamond embedded in gold (5) | INSET | (NE ITS)* |
| 24D | European ex-PM cycling (5) | IRISH | RISHI with R going to the end |
Here’s the list of Top Scorers (For the full list, please check the Leaderboard in the Hall of Fame)
Out of 57 solvers, only 42 completed fully and 21 got the full score. Each of the following scored 161 points (Grid Score – 154, Bonus – 7).
Al Sanders
Bhalchandra Pasupathy
Danuta Rosendorff
Ian VanderSchee
Koteswar Rao
Krittibas Dasgupta
Lakshmi Prakash
Max Jackson
Mona Sogal
Mukundala Balasubramanyam
Narayanan R
Nilesh Parmar
Prakash Arumugam
Ramki Krishnan
Ratna Rao
Samit Kallianpur
Sandhya Paruchuri
Tulika Das
Venkatraghavan S
Loks Subrahmanyam
Rathnakumar V
Congrats to the toppers and to all the solvers who participated.
Grid Rating: The puzzle got a good rating of 8.36. It got 9 perfect 10s (21% of those who rated). The lowest rating was 5.
Favorite Clues: The Top clues were
-
-
- Stalks Rock Hudson (6) – 13 votes
- Still unmoved – a time for love? (6) – 12 votes
- Author of cerebral novel – not British (2,5) – 8 votes
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Thanks Sceptic Cryptic for a fun puzzle with an interesting theme. Lovely clues with great surfaces and really enjoyable to solve. Here’s what our solvers said..
| Name | Comments / Feedback on the puzzle |
|---|---|
| Bhalchandra Pasupathy | Interesting puzzle, good selection of theme entries. Equally good clues with fairly intricate wordplay elements. |
| Jyothish Balakrishnan | Entertaining and thought provoking. |
| Mukundala Balasubramanyam | Nice thematic intoxicating grid! |
| Rathnakumar V | Fantastic Grid , cocktails going abegging on the eve of festivities |
| Srinivas Venkatesh | Cryptics with a diFFerence |
| Venkatesan P. | Nice Grid. Excellent clues. |
| Arun Hiregange | Loved the crisp, shorter, not verbose clues 🙂 The Rock Hudson clue was absolutely short and lovely. |
| Ashit Hegde | So many great clues , found it difficult to choose only 3 , A real fun grid and bonus puzzle |
| Lakshmi Vaidyanathan | Nice puzzle |
| Sandhya Paruchuri | Heady puzzle! |
| Veera Raghavan | Nice puzzle, good clues |
| Al Sanders | Fun puzzle, thanks! |
| Arvind Ramaswamy | Loved the thematic puzzle! lots of lovely clues… theme was guessable with 1 word (and connecting with title).. the rest was a question of identifying (read “googling”).. enjoyed solving! |
| Krittibas Dasgupta | Enjoyable puzzle with solver-friendly clues. Liked the surface on many of them. |
| Loks Subrahmanyam | Enjoyed solving the puzzle. Nice clues with smooth surfaces. |
| Madhusudan H | Very nice puzzle. Identifying thematic entries took time (as it was out of my syllabus) 🙂 |
| Max Jackson | 3dn PUN = quibble?20dn puzzlijng. |
| Mona Sogal | good fun- plenty of intoxication 🙂 |
| Nagendra Prasad R. | EASY FARE |
| Prakash Arumugam | Extremely enjoyable puzzle and it was fun identifying the thematic words |
| Ramki Krishnan | Nice grid with the right level of challenge. Many clues with smooth surfaces. Hope I got the theme right! |
| Samit Kallianpur | Nice grid with smooth surfaces all around! The ‘of’ in 2d (rev tel clue) could’ve been avoided |
| Venkatraghavan S | Nice steady puzzle with great surfaces. |
| Aashwina Mouli | Nice grid … hic!,, |
| Melissa McSeismal | Cryptic as an indictor is usually used for anagrams only and doesn’t suggest letter selection. There are eight entries in the grid that are cocktails. |
| Narayana Swamy D | ENJOYABLE |
| Narayanan R | easy and nice Grid |
| Ramesh Swaminathan | Smooth. Greatly enjoyed solving. Tough bonus for abstained! |
| Koteswar Rao | ENJOYABLE |