Actress Dobrev of Vampire Diaries / THU 10-4-18 / Eponymous regatta-winning yacht of 1851 / 1930s vice president John Garner / Soccer striker's jersey number traditionally / This is probably dumb but I'm doing it anyway hashtag

Constructor: Joon Pahk

Relative difficulty: Easy (3:53)

THEME: SODA MIXER (60A: Ingredient in some cocktails ... or a hint to the last words in 17-, 23-, 32-, 43- and 48-Across)— the last words of the themers can be "mixed" (i.e. anagrammed) to make the name of a "soda":

Theme answers:

• 17A: It might pop out of a kid's mouth (BUBBLE GUM) (Mug)
• 23A: Heavy metal band whose name is a euphemism for "Jesus Christ!" (JUDAS PRIEST) (Sprite)
• 32A: Main connections, of a sort (GAS PIPES) (Pepsi)
• 43A: Fashion designer whose namesake brand features a rhinoceros in its logo) (MARC ECKO) (Coke)
• 48A: Swinger's club [wink] (BASEBALL BAT) (Tab)

Word of the Day: JUDAS PRIEST (23A) —

Judas Priest are an English heavy metal band formed in West Bromwich in 1969. The band have sold over 50 million copies of their albums to date. They are frequently ranked as one of the greatest metal bands of all time. Despite an innovative and pioneering body of work in the latter half of the 1970s, the band struggled with indifferent record production, repeated changes of drummer, and lack of major commercial success or attention until 1980, when they adopted a more simplified sound on the album British Steel, which helped shoot them to rock superstar status. (wikipedia)

Jooooon! Haven't seen his name on an NYT byline in a while. So my first impressions of this puzzle are that it's a Wednesday puzzle. It was Wednesday-easy, and it was really a Wednesday type of puzzle. Tuesday, even. The only thing "Thursday" about it had nothing to do with the solving experience and everything to do with figuring out what the hell SODA MIXER has to do with those "last words." So the difficulty, such as there is, comes entirely post-solve. There are so many short answers that the puzzle is very, very easy to tear right through, despite a preponderance of narrow passageways (you know, those one-square-wide openings connecting one segment of the puzzle to another—they're all over the place, and they can inhibit flow ... but not today). What's really cool about this grid, and really instructive (I hope) to other constructors, is that The Fill Doesn't Suck. Usually, when a grid is designed such that 3- and 4-letter words abound, all kind of crap finds its way in there. And, OK, I'm not swooning over AAS or AMINO, but the point is that there's not a boatload of junk here. No random Roman numerals, no awkward abbrevs., and a bunch of very short two-word phrases that keep the those smallish corners unpredictable and interesting (NEW AT, TO NOW, SET UP, SIT AT, IN USE). Ironically, the only place where my progress through this grid was INHIBITED was ... (guess).


There is something really off about the revealer. The "ingredient" is SODA WATER. The word MIXER ... well, first, let's just say the phrase "SODA MIXER" googles pretty poorly. Even googling ["soda water" mixer] yields considerably more results. The word MIXER contains the idea of an added "ingredient," so SODA MIXER feels like not just a weak answer, but a semi-redundant answer. You would never, ever see an "ingredients" list for a cocktail that called for a SODA MIXER. The ingredient is "soda water" or "club soda." I know that the entire, admittedly cute theme rests on the phrase SODA MIXER, but I like cocktails almost as much as I like linguistic precision, so this answer was off-the-plate for me.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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