LCPP - Part XII

O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!”

He chortled in his joy.

- Lewis Carroll

Australian puzzle maker Brian Young has been creating his highly sought after limited edition puzzles since 1993, when he would only craft six of each new design. The popularity of these puzzles grew exponentially over the decades, thanks to Brian and his wife Sue’s successful international puzzle shop, “Mr. Puzzle”, and their close involvement with the international mechanical puzzle community. More recently, Brian has developed a fondness for “sequential discovery” type puzzles, with hidden tools that must be found and understood to ultimately solve the puzzle. He has slowed the production of his unique designs over the years, but at the same time increased the number of each run so more of his fans can get one.

Brian was a late addition to the line up of creators for the Lewis Carroll Puzzle Project, and did not have as much time to come up with an idea, nor as many choices for themes remaining. He was interested in the “timekeeper”, thinking he would perhaps hide a watch inside, but that idea was picked up by Robert Yarger. So he chose what was left, Tweedledum and Tweedledee, and ever the pragmatist, adapted his current work to fit the theme and meet the project deadline. At the time, he was getting his Three Wise Bolts (TWB) puzzle ready for production, a rectangular puzzle tightly secured by three puzzling brass bolts. He realized that he could adapt it into a cube to meet the required dimensions for the new project. He added a fourth bolt, an additional puzzling aspect, modified the internal mechanism slightly, and had a new design ready to go. Catching up on his “Through the Looking Glass” background information, he noted:

They were standing under a tree, each with an arm round the other’s neck, and Alice knew which was which in a moment, because one of them had “DUM” embroidered on his collar, and the other “DEE.” “I suppose they’ve each got ‘TWEEDLE’ round at the back of the collar,” she said to herself.

This gave Brian the idea to split the cube in half, with each half representing one twin. Light and dark Queensland Silver Ash and Blackbean woods gave a nice stripy pattern for their t-shirts, and each twin’s face was laser engraved on one side.  But what awaits them inside the box, I wonder?

Some will know the story about how Brian came up with the original idea for the TWB puzzle (and thus TD/TD as well), while watching a random You Tube video about tools that had nothing to do with puzzles. He says that he will often see something in day to day life and think, now that could be a puzzle. Brian expands on his creative process:

“Its hard to explain. The process evolves. I have [puzzling elements I need to complete]. But it can’t be that basic. I need to make something (the box) to house them. So then you start adding other things to hide the objective. To misdirect from the end goal.  A third [object], a part of which needs to be used elsewhere. When you keep adding tools and locks to the puzzle the next hardest thing is to know when to stop. One problem to try to stop happening is unintended solutions as you add more and more elements to the puzzle. Tools can be used elsewhere that you may not have thought about. Sometimes you can be fixed on your own solution thought process and it’s hard to see these other alternatives that other puzzlers might use. It’s good to have a long time between development and finish so I’ve gone over it in my mind many times and hopefully I catch these hickups before making the puzzle. (You never get them all). You also need to know when to stop so you don’t always end up with something as complex (and therefore big and expensive) as Katie!”

Brian also approaches all of his creations as a business venture, which may be why he has been so successful over the years. He explains, “I don’t really make prototypes … . Of course, I do prototype parts of the puzzle before making the whole thing. I might make a prototype of a particular lock to just be sure the mechanism translates from theory to reality.

Before getting into full production swing I setup the jigs at each required work station (be that router, CNC, saw, drill press, lathe, whatever). Then I make one puzzle. I guess you could call that a prototype. But it’s a saleable puzzle unless I find an issue that needs to be fixed and have to go back to the drawing board.

To me the jigs and the production process is almost as important as the puzzle itself to get right. It’s a commercial business for me. I have employees. I have to consider that it might not be me making the part. Safety is paramount. Accuracy next. Then speed.” It goes without saying that it all starts with a great puzzle design, which just comes naturally to the original Mr. Puzzle.

All of the toasts to the incredible puzzle boxes from the Lewis Carroll Puzzle Project have been inspired by the original Jabberwock cocktail found in Harry Craddock’s Savoy Cocktail Book, 1930. Yet none, up to now, have actually featured the original, which is comprised of equal parts gin, dry sherry, the South African vermouth Caperitif (which has only recently become available again), and a few dashes of orange bitters. Craddock, a celebrity bartender of the day, wrote that the cocktail would make you “gyre and gimble in the wabe, alright alright”.

The Tweedledum and Tweedledee cocktail is really two separate cocktails in one. The first is a proper Jabberwock, as described. Its twin is complimentary, using sloe gin, sweet sherry, and Cynar, with berry bitters. Sloe gin has been infused with sloe berries, a relative to the plum which is indigenous to the Northern Hemisphere, and the UK in particular, where homemade bottlings are a common autumn tradition. Oloroso sherry is a sweeter style produced by fortifying the wine early in the process and removing the layer of yeast known as the flor. This allows the wine to oxidize, imparting darker colors and sweeter flavors over time. Finally Cynar is an Italian amaro notable for its use of artichoke leaves, which do not actually impart that flavor to the final richly vegetal digestivo, but rather aids in digestion and imparts sweetness. The surprising combination of flavors in this twin cocktail make for a wonderful variation all on its own – but, these two are inseparable, after all. Cheers!

Tweedledum and Tweedledee

½ oz gin

½ oz sloe gin

½ oz Manzanilla

½ oz Oloroso

½ oz Caperitif

½ oz Cynar

1 dash orange bitters

1 dash Black Cloud Black and Blue bitters

Stir ingredients with ice and strain into a favorite glass. Garnish with a lemon peel “Dum” and “Dee” collar on the glass.

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