Thursday, November 10, 2022, David Taber & Laura Moll

Today we have another outing with Paul Coulter, as he shares with us his favorite drinks and mixers.  The themers might be a bit easier to follow if we start with the Grid.  As there are 4 pairs of related theme clues, I've shown the pairs here connected by red lines:

The first answer set consists of four beverages, 3 alcoholic (1A, 5A, and 60A) and one a mixer (45A).  These respective beverages are then "mixed" in anagrams embedded in 4 two word answers (46A, 27A, 17A,  and 66A).  The anagrams don't seem to have any particular relationship to the drinks in the first set of clues, but EDAM cheese (in 46A) might pair nicely with a CLARET (5A).  Paul, please feel free to stop by and comment if I'm missing something.  Here are the paired theme clues:

1. Ancient beverage "mixed" in 46-Across: MEAD. A drink fermented from honey. Also the name of the famous anthropologist Margaret Mead, best known for her seminal book Coming of Age In Samoa and for her autobiography Blackberry Winter.  The anagram here is EDAM.



46. "Give me time to collect myself": I NEED A MOMENT.  I needed a lot of MOMENTS to suss all of the above! 

5. Dinner beverage "mixed" in 27-Across: CLARET.  The British term for the dry red wines vinified just across the Channel in the Bordeaux region of France.  Clarets are generally BLENDS (mixes) of the VARIETALS Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, and Cabernet Franc. The anagram here is CARTEL:

27. Driver's aid, once: CAR TELEPHONE. Hands up if you've ever used one.  Bluetooth links to your cellphone don't count.

45. Fountain beverage "mixed" in 17-Across: SODA.  The anagram here is ADOS.  I guess all that fizzin' stirs up a fuss!

17. Air Force Academy city: COLORADO SPRINGS.  Also known for The Garden of the Gods:

and for The Will Rogers Shrine of the Sun: 

66. After-dinner beverage "mixed" in 60-Across: PORT.  All ports are made from a blend of grapes grown throughout Portugal's Douro valley. There are two kinds of port: TAWNY and RUBY.  Beyond that I've got to issue a CSO to C Moe for any additional exegesis on PORTS.  The anagram here is TROP:

60. Balancing act: TIGHTROPE WALKER.  Here French tightrope walker Bongonga completed a stunt on a cord hanging 35 meters from the ground at Paris' picturesque Montmartre hill, with no security cable attached to her costume.  I can barely bear to watch this. Sacré-Coeur! 

The anagram here was TROP, which imported from French into English still means TOO MUCH.  It might describe the throbbing in your head the next morning if you mixed "TOO MUCH" MEAD, CLARET, and PORT on New Years Eve!  Cheers, and here's all the rest ...

Across:

11. Cooking meas.: TSP.  It couldn't be the abbreviation for tablespoon, as that's four letters.

14. Part of a pot: ANTE.  On the other side of the pond it's pronounced ONTIE, as in your mother's sister.

15. On a smaller scale: LESS SO.

16. Bit in a horse's mouth: OAT.

20. Abbr. between names, perhaps: AKA.  An author's PSEUDONYM or perhaps more often an ALIAS for someone suspected of figuring out a crossword answer from the intersecting answers.  But who might get BUSTED by the dreaded NATICK.

21. Gulf of __: OMAN.  Could be the Gulf of ADEN.  You might have to perp it.

22. Starkers, on this side of the pond: NAKED.  On this side of the pond we have a similar sounding noun STREAKERS, but on the other side of the pond the former word is an adjective.  Here's a TV frame of a breathless Benedict Cumberbach (AKA Sherlock Holmes) being Scandalised in Bohemia by his STARKERS nemesis Irene Adler.  While this image is RATED PG, the one on the BBC was definitely RATED R:



23. Not fooled by: WISE TO.

25. City blight: SLUM.

33. Sneeze syllable: CHOO.  Doubled this becomes a kiddie TRAIN.

36. It's a wrap: SARAN.  I'll make mine with a TORTILLA thank you.

37. Bond was kicked out of it: ETON. If it's a four letter English school, you can count on it being ETON.

38. Fireplace shelf: HOB.  Dw will be happy to know we have one on our gas grill.  It's also "a machine tool used for cutting gears or screw threads".  CSO to Dash T, I know you've got a SONIC SCREWDRIVER, but do you have a HOB?  TAPS and DIES don't count.

39. Berkeley sch.: CAL.  CALs are something we've all resolved to avoid for at least another mo.

40. Effort: TRY.

41. ESPN MLB analyst: AROD.

43. Drive: MOTOR.  These have been known to throw A ROD from time to time.

49. Animal rights gp.: PETA.  Also a homo-phonic pocket bread used to serve FALAFELS with TAHINI and shredded lettuce.

50. Make more powerful: SOUP UP.  Like I did with the ham HOCK left over from Christmas dinner.  A bit salty though.

54. Gut feeling?: AGITA.

57. Simon Says player: APER.  So Simon was a simian?



59. That, in Oaxaca: ESA.

64. Artist Yoko: ONO.  Yoko was in the last puzzle I blogged and I'm happy to report that she is still with us.

65. Filling out forms, often: HASSLE.

67. Make a dent in: MAR.

68. Drove off: SHOOED.

69. Costner role: NESS.  A much more famous NESS is the LOCH in Scotland, the home of NESSIE, the MONSTER who warms the hearts of the Scottish tourist industry:



Down:

1. Rainforest parrot: MACAW.

2. Mushroom in Asian cuisine: ENOKI. 



Not to be confused with these cuddly creatures on the planet ENDOR. 

   

3. World record?: ATLAS. Cute clue.  OTOH Icelandic actor and strongman Hafthor Bjornsson set a world record for the deadlift last May, when he lifted 1,104 pounds (501 kg) at Thor's Power Gym in Iceland.

4. "Gloria in Excelsis __": DEO.  The beginning of the hymn from the Latin Mass.  Here is Antonio Vivaldi's setting:



5. Demands loudly, with "for": CLAMORS  Wannabe OYSTERS if you ask me.

6. Helen of Troy's mother: LEDA.  An early #METOO victim.

7. John Irving's "__ of the Circus": A SON.  I have but one.  And 8 grandchildren.  And sometimes it IS a circus!

8. __ feed: online news aggregator: RSS.  "Really Simple Syndication" is a web protocol that allows users and applications automatic access to website updates in a standardized, computer-readable format. These FIFO feeds can give you a pull down menu on your browser listing any new posts to a site.  In order for this to work the site must support the RSS protocol.

9. Medium gift: ESP.  IMHO there is some statistical evidence that there is something to this.

10. Ripped to shreds: TORN UP.

11. Honky-__: TONK.  I read somewhere that COVID-19 has really wreaked havoc on these convivial watering holes.

12. Wise one: SAGE.  A very wise man indeed. Without him there would be no SAUSAGES.

13. Condition once called "shell shock," for short: PTSD.  My father suffered from this for 10 years after WWII.  But he recovered and managed to raise a family of 5, four very bright girls and a boy.

18. Membership list: ROTA.

19. "You found the right guy," formally: I AM HE.

24. Novelist Umberto: ECO.  He was much more than a novelist, but is perhaps best known for his first novel, "The Name of the Rose", which was later made into a movie.



25. Go this way and that: SLALOM.  Sort of a gentle ZIG and ZAG.

26. Actor Cariou: LEN.   Canadian[Eh!] actor and stage director, best known for his Tony award winning portrayal of Sweeney Todd in the original Broadway cast of Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street.



28. City near Seattle: TACOMA.  From the Salish Indian word for the mountain that provided water to their tribe (later changed to Mount Rainier - I have no have no idea what that means in Salish.  Rainer maybe?).

29. Muse for Shelley: ERATO.

30. "The Simpsons" bus driver: OTTO.

31. North of Paris: NORD.

32. One-named New Ager: ENYA.  Please forgive the recursion but ...  I used to like this singer, but as time went by she became increasing derivative of ENYA.

33. Spiced tea: CHAI.

34. Cornucopia shape: HORN.  An almost clecho to 35B next. Both BRASSES and WOODWINDS have HORN shaped instruments, but they have different timbres and belong to different orchestral groups.

35. Bassoon kin: OBOE.  One of my favorite pieces for this instrument is Ennio Moriconi's "Gabriel's Oboe" for the film "The Mission" starring Jeremy Irons:

  

52. Computer operators: USERS.  The oft overlooked system "component".  I prefer the term STAKEHOLDER.   And when the computer is a personal computer, USERS are the chief stakeholders.

53. Labor go-with: PARTS.

54. Tiny bit: ATOM.  But not the tiniest.  There is ample evidence for SUBATOMIC PARTICLES, like the familiar ELECTRON, the PROTON, and the NEUTRON  But the latter two are further composed of even smaller particles called QUARKS.   Physicists, despairing of describing them in terms that we mere mortals might understand, assign them bizarre names like UP, DOWN, CHARM, STRANGE, TOP, and BOTTOM, , with a total of 17 denizens  in the particle zoo known as The Standard Model.  And if that's not STRANGE enough, there is a whole theory of near infinitesimally smaller particles called STRINGS, for which there is no experimental evidence whatsoever!  And I'm not stringing you along.  But the theorists might be.

55. Carano of "Deadpool""Deadpool": GINA.  I've never seen it, but it does get a lot of press, whatever it is.  Sounds like a scary place.

56. Horror movie assistant: IGOR.  Sometimes you have to perp it for the first letter, which may be a Y.

57. Lhasa __: APSO.  This breed originated in Tibet. How they could survive Tibetan winters I have no idea.  I knew one of them once,  and I know I shouldn't generalize on a sample of one, but my impression of it was that it was a warm. cuddly, white furry lizard with a ganglion in place of a brain.  A CSO to any Lhasa Apso owners on the Corner - as a dog lover I'd be happily disavowed of my prejudice if you've had a different experience.

58. Soccer great: PELE.

61. "Go team!": RAH.

62. Spanish bear: OSO.  I don't think I can bear that again.

63. Hosp. staffer: LPN.  A CSO to the LPNs, RNs, LAB TECHS and DOCTORS (inanehiker, Ray-O and any I've missed)  on the Corner.  YOU ARE HEROES!!!

 waseeley