Jack Be Nimble

Goodbye, Piccadilly,
Farewell, Leicester Square!
It's a long long way to Tipperary,
But my heart's right there. – Jack Judge and Harry Williams, 1912

Jack Krijnen’s original autobiographical puzzle, “Jack in the Box”, was a sensational creation that garnered high praise and “best of” year end awards when he released it a few years ago. The unassumingly pretty box presented a number of layered challenges, each of a different type, and each representing something particularly endearing to and about Jack, a mathematician from Einthoven University in the Netherlands who has spent a lifetime hobby of both inventing and crafting complex yet logical and elegant interlocking puzzles. Jack’s life has been far too rich to rely on a single best seller, and it’s no surprise that he released a sequel which is just as pleasing, if not more so, for all the right reasons. Each box was made from 362 parts, some just a few millimeters in length, and represent a process that took Jack ten months to complete - not counting designing and prototyping, which would likely double that time! There are the familiar aspect to things you might expect from a sequel, but it remains highly plot driven and doesn’t rely on any of the same exact “tricks” again. And then there is the name. In Jack’s own words, “What's in a name? I don't take that lightly. I like the name of a puzzle to tell the story in short. First came to mind 'Tippenary Box'; next was 'Tippenary Onion'. Ultimately, I choose 'The Tippenary Mystery Tour'. It sounds so nice and inviting. And it raises curiosity.” The name is a perfectly catchy, irresistible and revealing start to this impressive creation.

Clearly, we are in for a “tour” here, and prior experience with Jack in the Box suggests there may be a series of different puzzle types waiting to be discovered inside. “Tippenary” is an odd word, and again knowing about Jack’s work suggests its meaning. It’s hardly giving anything away when it’s right there in the title, so it seems fair game to be reminded of Jack’s seminal work with puzzle designer Goh Pit Khiam on “n-ary” sequence designs which culminated in their “Power Tower” puzzles, and others. “The Slots&Pins puzzle was invented by Goh Pit Khiam as part of our research into n-ary puzzles. It's another implementation of the Power Tower mechanism; the key pieces enforce the n-ary sequence, so there is no need for an additional long key piece. Nice characteristics: it is mixed base, and everything is in the open.” I’m not admitting that any of this is relevant, but it is interesting! Besides knowing about the importance of n-ary sequence puzzles in Jack’s life, there is also a very important interlocking “burr” puzzle he is quite fond of, named … well I think it must be fairly obvious.

The origins of this famous burr can also be traced back to Pit Khiam as well, and his long friendship with Jack. Back in 2002, Khiam held a record for his Burloon puzzle, an eighteen-piece interlocking burr with the most moves ever designed – thirty-three – to release the first piece. Jack admired that and imagined it was too daunting to surpass, yet couldn’t help but try. He focused his efforts on adapting ideas from Peter Marineau’s Piston Puzzle, a six-piece burr with a to-and-fro subsequence of moves, into an eighteen-piece burr with a six-move subsequence that is implemented back and forth three times while interact with a seven-move key piece. Adding all of that together resulted in his crowning achievement, a unique solution burr requiring 43 moves to remove the first piece. Jack’s Tipperary burr, which set a new record at the time, took him approximately two hours per day for six months to complete – a long, long way indeed. Jack subsequently went on to design Supernova jointly with puzzle designer Alfons Eykmans, an eighteen-piece burr which requires 166 moves for the first piece and holds the current record. But Tipperary will always remain Jack’s favorite design, because of the story, the effort, and the use of his mind, rather than a computer program, to create it.

With Jack-in-the-Box and this one I might have introduced a new type of puzzle: the sequential puzzle discovery. – Jack Krijnen

With all of this backstory understood, “Tippenary” becomes quite a nice word and explains much of what might be expected on the mystery tour. But it hardly prepares you for what is actually in store. There are many layers to this puzzle discovery, which Jack built one on the next. All of his ingenuity is on display, including a very clever invention he came up with to make an old classic puzzle new again. Jack likes to play games – he is a puzzle designer, after all – so be warned! He relates a story about this tendency, “I know it's a bad habit, but I like teasing people. Many years ago, when I was still in my working days, I got a completely new management team. When they introduced themselves I offered them a special puzzle and told them it could only be solved by real managers; it was a management
puzzle. What had I done? I made a burr with a lot of movement possible; one of the pieces could even be freed. But that was all. I had cut one piece and glued the two halves together in the assembled puzzle. The message: as a manager you're often in the situation you have to make a decision even if you lack sufficient time/information. You just have to cut the knot. Did I mention the new managers didn't make it to the top?”

Clearly Jack is devious. He knows his audience and wants to push them outside of their comfort zone, perhaps to see if they are truly up for the challenge. One final explanation for what is in store on the mystery tour is again best said by Jack: “More teasing: many people liking SD [sequential discovery] boxes don't like burrs. But they do like my other puzzles and the way I connect puzzles of different types. So I just couldn't abandon the impulse of confronting them. I think emotion is a valuable ingredient of puzzles, even if it is not 'AH' but '#*@!'. Puzzlers must feel the puzzle! To make up for it: there are a few AH's after the initial '#*@!'!” This is a puzzle box that truly challenges - the genre, and especially the solver. It stays with you for a long time, in the best way a good novel or movie does, and it’s no surprise that it too has ended up at the top of many “best of” lists this past year. Thanks for sharing more of yourself with us, Jack.

Here’s a toast to the Tipperary, and to the stories it has spawned, with its own storied namesake cocktail. The Tipperary cocktail can first be found in the pages of “Recipes for Mixed Drinks” by Hugo Ensslin, 1916, a classic and revered source of pre-prohibition classics. As might be expected, the drink features Irish whiskey, complimented in equal parts by sweet vermouth and herbal Green Chartreuse. The original formula was soon improved in another classic tome, “ABC of Mixing Cocktails” by Harry MacElhone, 1922, by adjusting the balance to more whiskey, less vermouth and even less Chartreuse.

Turning the page to the new century brings the Tipperary cocktail forward one hundred years where it finds itself being served at the modern mecca of Irish whiskey, the Dead Rabbit, one of the most celebrated bars in the world. Jack McGarry, the proprietor, points out that this classic is a variation of the Bijou cocktail, invented by the great Harry Johnson and found in his Bartender’s Manual, 1900. The Bijou (French for jewel) features gin (a diamond) along with the sweet vermouth (a ruby) and green Chartreuse (an emerald). McGarry adjusts the rations once again for the modern palate to allow the expression of Irish whiskey to shine through. He elevates and promotes the drink as an underappreciated classic. Here’s to the enjoyable challenges in life that take us a long, long way, and leave a lasting impression. Cheers!

Tipperary adapted by Jack McGarry

1 ½ oz premium Irish whiskey

1 oz sweet vermouth

½ oz green Chartreuse

2 dashes Angostura bitters

Stir ingredients with ice and strain into a favorite glass. Express orange peel oil over the drink.

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