New York Times, Tuesday, October 25, 2016

The initial spark was the thought of doing a puzzle with a large circle graphic — I tend to like puzzles that have something of visual interest in the design.

I realized early on that "mirror symmetry" would be the best option and also, if I wanted to have a long horizontal central themer, I would need a "cheater" square at each end, otherwise it was too difficult to mesh the long themer with the "round" (circle of shaded squares). Once the "round" had taken shape I began the search for circle themes. "THE RING OF FIRE" had potential but fires were mostly too negative! Eventually, it may have been the time of day that made me think about Happy Hour ;-), but at some point I thought "THE ROUND'S ON ME!" could be fun! It had the requisite 13 letters for the central themer and made for nice graphic word play too.

From there the types of bar drinks were fairly easy to list but many didn't yield acceptable fill. The other issue was with the top and bottom words in the "round" which are the only ones that were clued words (not formed like the others by diagonals) that could potentially prematurely give away the other themer words in the "round". RUM, at the top, and VODKA, at the bottom, for example, would have given it away pretty quickly. But GIN (also a card game) and STOUT (not just a drink) worked out to help conceal, from solvers, the thematic reveal words a little longer in the "round".

This was a fun puzzle to construct!

THIS ROUNDS ON ME! Er, THE ROUNDS ON ME. Hmm. I've never actually heard anyone get up and declare either one, but the former is the way I imagine it happening.

Jeb (John E. Bennett) and I live pretty close to each other, so we meet up occasionally to talk shop. When he mentioned this one to me, I smiled — great minds think alike! I actually like his interpretation better than mine, what with 1.) the pretty circle, or "round" formed by the drinks, and 2.) the fact that all of his are alcoholic beverages.

I also appreciated his touch of GIN and STOUT, ones that can easily be clued not as the drink. As Jeb mentioned, that did hide the theme for a little bit.

I always worry when I see diagonal answers, since it's so tough to construct around them. But I like what Jeb did in the top left corner a lot. It is true that he had a lot of flexibility, being able to use any six-letter alcoholic beverage, but he made SHERRY work so nicely. DEATHS did give me a pause, since it's a bit of a no-no to include downers like this, but needing virtually no crossword glue to hold a section like this together is great work.

The bottom left exhibits a few of the usual traits I'd expect out of a section with diagonal answers — not surprising, given how open the corner is compared to the top left. I did like TRAIN CAR, HOT MEALS, even GIMBAL (sue me, I'm an engineer). I didn't like NNE/ACAP/PCT/ERST holding it together.

A different type of compromise in the bottom right. The short stuff is all fine, but the longer stuff ... RETESTS is a bit iffy, and EAGEREST feels more than a bit iffy. Working around these diagonal answers, if it ain't one thing, it's another.

Given the degree of difficulty here though, I enjoyed the final result despite my initial hesitations, especially that pretty ring of drinks, and the theme felt uplifting. I like it when a puzzle leaves me with good spirits.

(rim shot)