Tag Archives: wine

A Corn Maze for Grown Ups?

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Summer is officially here!

Usually, that doesn’t really mean much in the world of puzzles. After all, puzzles are a year-round activity, not beholden to seasonal changes in weather or temperature.

Unless, of course, we’re talking about corn mazes.

Cultivated and shaped over the course of weeks or months, corn mazes are grand puzzly creations, as immersive as they are impressive. Few puzzles can inspire the same feeling of wonder as a corn maze as you explore and roam the various twists and turns laid out by intrepid farmers and entrepreneurs.

Plus they’re family-friendly. It’s rare for a corn maze to provide a genuine challenge, so the genre as a whole tends to be viewed as an endeavor more suitable for families or children than adults on their own.

The folks at Holmberg Orchards & Winery in Gales Ferry, Connecticut, however, have something in different in mind this year.

winemaze1

Find the Wine: A Grown Up Corn Maze Adventure is being held in August and September, and puzzlers must be 21 years old and up in order to attend.

This corn maze features stations hidden amongst the various labyrinthine pathways, and these stations will be offering samples of both wine and hard cider for your enjoyment!

Each event runs from 6 pm to 8:30 pm, which is ample time to explore both the maze and various libations in a relaxed and unique puzzly environment, and there will be live music and food truck options available after you’ve completed the maze.

winemaze2

You can click here for ticket details, or visit their websites for further information on the event. There are six Find the Wine dates available — Friday August 23rd, Saturday August 24th, Friday August 30th, Saturday August 31st, Friday September 6th, and Friday September 13th — and tickets are both limited and date-specific.

I think it’s a clever take on the traditional corn maze, and a very smart marketing concept for the winery itself, eliminating some of the noise and chaos of kid-friendly events and creating more of an air of a date night or casual social gathering.

It sounds like a pleasant evening of puzzling for the tipplers out there, don’t you think?

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Pun for the Road: Puzzle Drinks!

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Oh yes, it’s that time again! It’s time to unleash our puzzly and punny imaginations and engage in a bit of sparkling wordplay!

You may be familiar with the board game Schmovie, hashtag games on Twitter, or @midnight’s Hashtag Wars segment on Comedy Central.

For years now, we’ve been collaborating on puzzle-themed hashtag games with our pals at Penny Dell Puzzles, and this month’s hook was #PennyDellPuzzleDrinks, mashing up Penny Dell puzzles with beverages, drinks, thirst-quenchers, and aperitifs, both alcoholic and nonalcoholic!

Examples include: HopScotch, Mojito-at-a-Time, and Sunrays-D.

So, without further ado, check out what the puzzlers at PuzzleNation and Penny Dell Puzzles came up with!

All Mixed Up Drinks!

ZinfanDell

Crossword App-letini

Lemon Drop-Ins

Beer and There WS

Mixed Drinks: Sixes on the Beach

Hex(agrams) on the Beach

Word Seeks on the Beach

Long Island Roll of the Diced Tea

WhisKeyword

Sloe Gin Fill-Ins / Fill-Gin

Crypto Lime Rickey

Angostura Bits & Pieces

Mud Slide-o-gram / Mudslide-O-Rama / Mudslide Rule

Perfect Fit Schnapps

Schnapps-lines

Capri Sunrays

Tequila Sunrays

Tequilabyrinth

Pine Cone-lada

7 & 7-UP

Mezcalators

Mai Tie-In / Mai Tai-In

Family Mai Tais

Gimlet-terboxes / Take a Gimletter

Blue cura-countdowns

Anagram-aretto

Vodkakuro

HeinekenKen

Camouflager

JigSake Puzzle

Give and Sake

A to Zima-ze

Quilting Zombee

Bar-Tiles & Jaymes

Blackout! Russian

Blackout and Tan

Black and Tanglewords

Cosmopolitanglewords

Highball Scorer

Five Alive Twists

Apple InCiders

Bubbles Tea

Punch Bowl Game

V-8 Words

Red Bull’s Eye Spiral

Grand Pour

SyllaBubbles

Letter Powerade

Half and Halftime

Crosswords Club soda

Two Puzzly Drinks for the Price of One!

Sam Add-One Boston Longer Division

Crypto-Lime Rickeyword

Drummerman and Cokakuro

Lucky Score-pion Bowl Game

L’Drinkwords!

Baristar Words

Fair Trade-Off

Wine Connoisseur

Mixed Drink Bag

Mixer Master

Hey bartender, Fill ‘Er Up!

Five Twists of Lime

Name Blended Whiskeys

Top Shelf to Bottoms Up

Are we going to get Scorecarded for ordering any of these drinks?

Candy is dandy, but liquor is Quicker Quotes.

It’s Your Move
Puzzler
Add One

There was also a submission that deserves its own section, as one of our intrepid puzzlers went above and beyond by reimagining a classic tippler’s tune:

99 Bubbles of beer on Quotefalls, 99 Bubbles of beer, you take 1 Down, pass it In and Around, 98 Bubbles of beer on Quotefalls . . .

Have you come up with any Penny Dell Puzzle Drinks entries of your own? Let us know! We’d love to see them!

Thanks for visiting PuzzleNation Blog today! Be sure to sign up for our newsletter to stay up-to-date on everything PuzzleNation!

You can also share your pictures with us on Instagram, friend us on Facebook, check us out on Twitter, Pinterest, and Tumblr, and explore the always-expanding library of PuzzleNation apps and games on our website!

Wine Is Better For Your Brain Than Puzzles?

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[Image courtesy of Bevlaw.]

“It’s time to trade in your Sudoku and crossword puzzles for a glass of wine.”

That was the opening quote in an article sent to me by a friend (and wine enthusiast) who thought I’d be interested to hear just why we should be tossing aside our puzzles for a bit of vino.

That article discusses the book Neuroenology: How the Brain Creates the Taste of Wine, by Yale neuroscientist Gordon Shepherd, and Shepherd posits that the flavor of wine “engages more of our brain than any other human behavior.”

More than listening to music, solving math problems, or hitting a baseball? Apparently so. Even more than solving one of our beloved crossword grids? Shepherd certainly believes that to be the case, and he’s packing some serious science to back it up.

[Image courtesy of Amazon.]

From an NPR piece about the book:

The apparently simple act of sipping Merlot involves a complex interplay of air and liquid controlled by coordinated movements of the the tongue, jaw, diaphragm and throat. Inside the mouth, molecules in wine stimulate thousands of taste and odor receptors, sending a flavor signal to the brain that triggers massive cognitive computation involving pattern recognition, memory, value judgment, emotion and of course, pleasure.

Now, of course, we’re all about engaging the brain in a positive way in this blog. We’ve spent plenty of time debunking faulty promises about “brain-training” puzzle sites and the like that make grand, unfounded promises about what puzzles can do to stave off Alzheimer’s, memory issues, dementia, and more. The science is still out on exactly how long-term puzzle-solving affects the brain, and whether there are benefits, so we’ll table that idea for now.

But savoring a sip of wine and exercising the brain? Now that’s something we can get behind.

[Image courtesy of Amazon.]

Or you could be evil, slap one of these brain teasers on the bottle, and annoy your friends.

Then again, this just makes me think you should enjoy a glass of wine WHILE solving a crossword. The best of both worlds!

Thanks for visiting PuzzleNation Blog today! Be sure to sign up for our newsletter to stay up-to-date on everything PuzzleNation!

You can also share your pictures with us on Instagram, friend us on Facebook, check us out on Twitter, Pinterest, and Tumblr, and explore the always-expanding library of PuzzleNation apps and games on our website!