Double Trouble

Double Trouble was an American sitcom from the mid nineteen eighties about twin teenage sisters being raised by their widowed father. The show relied on the classic trope of one serious and one carefree sibling. Double Trouble is also the name of an American blues rock band from Austin, Texas famous for backing guitarist Stevie Ray Vaughan. But close friends of Doog Menzies, a ship builder and craftsman, among other things, who resides much of the time on a mountain in the French Alps, may know it to be one of his best puzzle boxes.

Doog, who now has an international following of mechanical puzzle enthusiasts, has entered a phase of puzzle design and production which he never imagined back when he was coming up with puzzling ideas with which to entertain himself and his friends. He is an active engineer and builder of luxury yachts, and has come up with many a clever mechanism while on the job. The roots of Double Trouble originate from back in that carefree period before he began to produce his puzzle boxes for sale. Doog took some time to tell me the story.

“My puzzle making journey is easily divided into four phases.

A) Onboard S/Y Anakena purely as a means of staying sane.

B) Building a workshop, stocking it with a small selection of high quality tools and treating puzzle making as a hobby.

C) Producing and selling some of my more “friendly to build” boxes.

D) Prototyping smaller metal puzzles and collaborating with Rademic Puzzles.

Double Trouble came from the heart of phase B. I had many ideas running through my head. Some of which had been used in other one-off boxes. At this point, I had no interest in streamlining any manufacturing processes. If I thought of a mechanism, I just built it no matter how long it took. There was never a log kept of my hours when building these boxes, it didn’t seem relevant.

My friends were still a huge driving factor for me. They had been getting fussy! Analysing my puzzle boxes had become a sport for them. Ranking the boxes in difficulty seemed obvious early on in the game, but things had now changed. Criteria like, fun, flow, logic and build quality were now more important. Knowing that I would send you Double Trouble, I asked my friends to judge all the boxes that came out of phase B. The Tower Box (Now residing in California) and Double Trouble came out on top. They were the pinnacle of phase B.

There are several ideas which will undoubtedly end up in a production box, but Double Trouble will never be remade. There is just too much work and too many man hours needed to create boxes like this by hand. The market would not support the price I would have to charge. Double Trouble will always be unique.”

With a tidy, tiny little workshop now at his disposal, “at the end of 2020/start of 2021” Doog put a few of his ideas together in a single box. There is one mechanical component or concept here that will be recognizable “in several of my boxes [which] are more or less identical in their function. The difference lies in the way they are manipulated and/or the way you manipulate them to their solved (open) state.” Indeed, recognizing this mechanism may not be difficult, but implementing it correctly is a fantastic and unique challenge. “It’s fair to say that with my puzzles, it’s not a mystery or even difficult to figure out the mechanics. The difficulty is understanding how you manipulate it correctly.”

This central mechanism also inspired the puzzle’s name. Doog mentioned that once he had decided on that idea, “it was a very small leap” to double down on it, making things “at least twice the fun.” This novel mechanism requires multiple components and Doog comments that was “quite a bit of planning” to get everything just right. “It’s probably worth mentioning that in this phase of my puzzle making, it was all just fun. I was never frustrated or felt any pressure to make these boxes. I enjoyed the whole process.

Engineering on yachts needs to be part of my life too. The contrast of living in the mountains and then occasionally going to sea is very good for my head.” With so many great ideas, and the skills and tools needed to realize them, it’s nice to know that Doog appears to have found a production formula that works well for himself. “I like designing and building new things more than I enjoy batch producing boxes. I’m certain that this is universally felt by designers/makers in the puzzle world. I’m a naturally positive person and it was just up to me to find a path that maximised the enjoyment and minimised the displeasure. It is true that I don’t get as much time to design these days, but I have a backlog of box designs to make. The work I do with Radek is mostly design with a small amount of prototyping in my workshop. This is a fantastic collaboration that brings out the best in us both.”

Having spent the start of its life being passed around to many of Doog’s close friends and acquaintances, Double Trouble showed some signs of having been well loved. “Refurbishing Double Trouble was a fun experience for me. It had been ages since I’d played with it, so to interact with the mechanisms again was cool. Of course I knew the process, but I still had to work out the [specific steps and navigate the tricks and dead ends]. It took me several attempts. Reading the comments book [stored inside] is always fun. I had previously given it a coat of “lazure” which is like a varnish. The markings on the box were all in pencil. I started by lightly sanding the whole box and then burning in all the markings. A thorough sanding and tung oil application and she was looking smarter than I’d hoped for! The rod that held in the aluminium box was originally mild steel. After the re-vamp, this was definitely out of place so I cut a length of stainless steel to replace it.” The refresh has given the box a lovely warm glow. It appears ready for many more adventures …

Double Trouble is a fantastic puzzle box that exemplifies its maker’s unique design style. There are logical puzzles to solve here, that will make you think outside the box and flex your mechanical design skills, as you make your way through the various stages. Nothing is truly hidden or meant to trick you, which doesn’t mean it will be easy. Fortunately the box is extremely sturdy, so it can weather the journey it will find itself on. “I cannot stress this enough, the puzzle community is like nothing I’ve seen before. It’s welcoming, open, honest, supportive and full of adults who (apart from childlike enthusiasm for puzzles) behave like adults. It really is amazing how, with modern communication, a wide spread group of crazies can get together in such a positive way. For me, designing and making puzzles and boxes is something I want to do forever.”

Here’s a toast to double trouble, in celebration of the playful meaning of the expression. Things that require twice the effort are often twice as rewarding, after all. The Old Fashioned cocktail, which defined the introduction of cocktails in America two hundred years ago, remains one of the most popular drinks of the modern era. The “Double Old Fashioned” is not really a drink, but rather a measure of volume which has been transferred to the glass itself. Like anything popular, people wanted more of their favorite drink. An “Old Fashioned” glass is a squat heavy bottomed tumbler with straight sides. A “double” Old Fashioned glass is a bit larger, wider and with sides that typically slope out from the base, to accommodate a bigger pour.

A classic Old Fashioned is made with rye whiskey, sugar and aromatic bitters all stirred up with ice to dilute and chill it. Delicious variations are easy to create by replacing, for example, the sugar with some other form of sweetener. For the “Double Trouble” version I’ve borrowed a distinctly French spirit in a nod to the drink’s inspirations, a tiny workshop nestled in the French Alps, a yacht builder and a mysteriously puzzling box. Benedictine is a sweet herbal liqueur dating from 1863. In a brilliant bit of marketing savvy, the original producer Alexandre Le Grand augmented the origin story to include the Benedictine Abbey of monks from Normandy, and embossed the distinctive bottles with their motto “DOM” (Deo Optimo Maximo). Benedictine pairs extremely well with the richly cherry flavored Heering liqueur from Denmark, and aromatic walnut bitters compliment the whole. Of course, the proportions are appropriately augmented as well, so you don’t have to go through all the fuss of making another right away. Cheers!

Deux Fois

3 oz rye

¾ oz Cherry Heering

¾ oz Benedictine

2 dashes black walnut bitters

Stir ingredients with ice and strain into a favorite glass. Double orange twist.

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