Crossword blogCrosswords This article is more than 7 years oldCryptic crosswords for beginners: alcohol
This article is more than 7 years oldDry Januaries come and go, but alcohol is involved in almost all cryptic crosswords: here’s how to decode references to pubs, wine, beer and even abstention
In a recent instalment of this helpful series, our eyes boggled at the amount of slang that has been gifted to the English language by illegal recreational drugs. A flick through the nearest slang dictionary will reveal that the same goes for booze.
For those who would like to upgrade from quick to cryptic crosswords, think of this post as a prohibition-era speakeasy: there are lots of secret codes involving alcohol, but once you know them, everything very quickly becomes unlocked ...
In the example clues that follow, remember that cryptics generally give you two routes to the answer: a definition of what it actually means (indicated in bold type), before or after a little recipe for the letters that spell it out (in italics).
Some examples
One of the most common references to drink in crosswords is, in fact, a reference to abstinence. Here’s Picaroon:
23d Dry sandwiches a cold delicacy (4)
Here, we look at the word “dry” and replace it with TT, since both indicate “teetotal”. The rest of the wordplay is relatively simple: in “a cold”, the “a” indicates, well, an A, and the “cold” a C (think taps). Finally, the TT “sandwiches” the A and the C (see our earlier post on putting one thing inside another) for the answer: TACT. And that’s also given by the definition at the end of the clue: delicacy.
As for the drinks themselves: if you see the word “wine” in a clue, consider the letters R, E and D in the answer. RED is assuredly an ingredient scattered widely across the chequered grids of crosswords (and four times in this sentence). Here’s Auster:
11ac Most drained one wine during trial (8)
“One”, as usual, indicates an I, next to a RED for “wine”, both of which come inside (“during”) another word for trial: TEST. TEST, containing I+RED: TIREDEST, or “most drained”. Likewise with this one from Crucible:
28ac Spots wine, then loses it (4,3)
We replace “spots” with a synonym (“sees”), and wine with that same colour: SEES RED.
Keep an eye out also for the places we drink. Whatever it appears to mean, “local” in cryptic clues should usually be read in the sense of “one’s local”: a pub, indicated on maps with PH for public house. So in this down clue from Qaos ...
22d Mourinho’s supported by local patriarch (6)
... Mourinho’s first name is on top of (supported by) that PH, and the answer is the patriarch JOSEPH.
It’s not always that simple
Cryptics thrive on ambiguity, and so a clue that refers to a drinking establishment might equally have DEN or BAR in its answer. And if RED doesn’t work, the wine might equally be SEC, the low-alcohol Spanish red known as TENT or a more familiar PORT. And the most common crosswording wine, other than house RED, is ...
17ac Desperate doctor takes wine cold (7)
... from southeastern Piedmont, ASTI. So here Rufus asks you to abbreviate “doctor” to DR, add the ASTI, then C as above for DRASTIC.
TENT and ASTI may be seen more often in crosswords than in real life, but the crosswordiest drink of all is one that solvers must imagine is commonly added to gin. A “gin and it” is not, as I supposed for years, some wilfully evasive way of referring to a G&T; “it” is sweet Italian vermouth and sooner or later, you will come across a “drink” in a clue which indicates an IT in an answer.
Sticking with the spirits for a moment, other senses of drinks that live on in crosswords if not in the rest of the world are “gin” (in the sense of “trap”, via “engine”), and “rum” (in the sense of “odd”: a “rum-looking chap”, etc).
And this means that “rum” can be used in a clue in way that suggests at first that we’re talking about drink, but really means that there’s an anagram about. Here’s Nutmeg:
19d Vigilante extremists blocking rum trade warded off (7)
So we take the first and last letters of “vigilante” and use them to block a “rum” (jumbled-up) version of the letters in “trade”: VE inside ARTED, for the answer AVERTED. The same goes for “drunk”, “tipsy”, “loaded” or any other word that might mean the letters of the adjacent words need to reel around into the answer.
Lastly for now, a reminder that “whiskey”, because of its use in the phonetic alphabet, might indicate nothing more than a single W in an answer.
Over to you
Beginners: any questions? Seasoned solvers: any favourite examples? The rest of our For Beginners posts are available here and the Guardian’s weekly quiptic puzzle is designed as a stepping-stone for those who want to make the leap from the cryptic.
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