Tracy's Box of Tricks
Bag of Tricks
It’s been a while since I featured something from Tracy Wood Clemons, an American woodworker who, when asked how she became so talented at designing intricate and complex wooden puzzle boxes, can honestly say, “well, that’s my middle name, after all”. Tracy’s unique style is instantly recognizable. She tends to use mahogany in most of her pieces and accent it with a pleasant color palette of other warm woods. Her work is often folksy or even rustic in appearance, which might give the impression of being simplistic, but that is far from the case. She has a very clever mind and a knack for puzzle mechanisms and mechanics. You might say she has a whole bag of tricks in her brain, just itching to get out.
Tracy's Box of Tricks by Tracy Wood Clemons
She used that bag of tricks to produce a wonderful box of tricks. “Tracy’s Box of Tricks” is an impressive creation, a large and hefty wooden sculpture that just begs to be explored. Crafted from Walnut, African Mahogany and Oak, the box sits 10 ½ x 9 x 9 inches tall and deep and is fairly heavy. It looks quite complex, with many levels, components, and what appears to be a cage of sorts, all resting firmly on a set of multicolored feet. There are nice details all around and an overall pleasing architectural shape to the structure. Pick it up, and you will hear various clicks, clacks and movements occurring from within. Tracy relates that she had the idea for this box rattling around similarly in her head for well over two years before she was finally able to put it all into the world. Her “inspiration” was to create an extremely challenging puzzle box which also had an appealing artistic look and feel to it, and she has indeed succeeded very well. Tracy’s puzzle boxes truly live up to that name, in the sense that she likes to incorporate actual puzzles into the designs. For example, The Writer’s Block, an old fashioned writing box style puzzle box she made, includes an actual sliding block type of puzzle which must be solved in two different ways in order to access two of the compartments inside.
What wonders await?
Her creations also tend to be “sequential discovery” puzzles, requiring tools which she hides here and there that are needed for other parts of the journey. The Box of Tricks is incredibly ambitious, with three separate “tiers” to work through, each with its own set of challenges. There are a few hidden compartments to find, at least six separate objects to discover which may or may not come in handy, and she has added a nice touch for the finale as well. Tracy has green eyes, and refers to herself as “The Green Eyed Lady”. She created a logo to match, and has placed it in the final hidden compartment, like a Japanese hanko. You’ll have to work for your prize, and it won’t be easy. The second tier section is particularly tough, with a set of mechanisms you will not simply stumble upon. As if that weren’t hard enough, Tracy plays one more trick on you. She includes a detailed set of opening instructions, but has purposefully made these cryptic as well, so that if you are tempted to peek, you will still struggle. Her instructions are part of the fun, and part of the charm of her work. I struggled for a long time to open all the sections of this box, and was convinced there must be something wrong, that a piece had come loose inside, or stuck, or broken. No such thing had occurred, and it turns out that she plans her mechanisms precisely to ensure that such things won’t occur. Don’t be fooled – she is too good at fooling you otherwise.
A Mahogany cocktail for the Green Eyed Lady
For Tracy’s Box of Tricks I dipped into the cocktail lore’s bag of tricks as well and pulled out a fitting drink from one of the cocktail worlds true nerds, Robert Hess, a computer software guru at Microsoft, called the “Mahogany”. Back at the start of the new cocktail renaissance in the late nineties, Hess was there, talking source code with the bartenders who helped rewrite the script. He was one of the few “non-industry” folks who was truly a part of the scene, and kept a massive drinks file on his handheld PDA which he would share with the professionals. He ultimately turned these into the trend setting website “Drinkboy” in 1998, which became the industry standard of the time.
A stunning collection of flavors
A German acquaintance of his once challenged him to create a cocktail using the much maligned Jägermeister, a classic German amaro made with 56 herbs and spices and known for its bracing and strong flavors. Originally crafted as a digestive aid in 1934, a marketing genius brought it to the US in the eighties and turned it into a party drink. Despite the stigma it now holds for many, it remains true to its craft origins and can be appreciated as such. But crafting a cocktail with it is a true challenge, as the flavors tend to overpower anything else. Hess came up with a brilliant drink, which balances the Jager with another, sweeter herbal liqueur, Benedictine, and equilibrates them both with dry vermouth. There’s a little flourish in the glass as well, with a spritz of cinnamon tincture to tie things together. The story goes that Hess would keep this tincture in his pocket and bring it out when his bartending friends would not be able to complete the drink properly. I recreated the drink with an homage using Averna and Underberg amaros, which together bring out the best flavors from Jägermeister. This drink is like a multilayered, multistep puzzle box, with lots to discover and so many surprises. Cheers!
More than a few tricks in this pair
Mahogany by Robert Hess
¾ oz Jägermeister (or sub ½ oz Averna and ¼ oz Underberg)
¾ oz Benedictine
1 ½ oz dry vermouth
Dash of cinnamon tincture (or cinnamon schnapps)
Stir the ingredients with ice and strain into a glass which has been coated in the cinnamon tincture. No garnish, unless it is for the Green Eyed Lady.
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