Contest results: Rinks

Last week's contest puzzle, "Rinks," asked you to find a four-letter entry in the grid that would have made a good theme entry.

What were the actual theme entries? Well, there were four entries with numbers in brackets beside them:

SOAP OPERA (6)
CONCIERGE (4)
ESCORIAL (6)
JANELLE MONAE (7)

Each of those entries hides the name of a "rink" - a drink missing the letter D - and the number indicates the length of the rink:

SO(D)A POP
CI(D)ER
COR(D)IAL
LEMONA(D)E

So we're looking for a four-letter word that also hides a rink, and the answer is MEAN, which contains MEAD without the D. (I also would have accepted SORE, since RED can refer to a drink, but nobody submitted that.)

There were 45 correct submissions, and the randomly-chosen winner is Anna Gundlach, who receives a year's subscription to Bewilderingly. Congrats, Anna!

Puzzle #94: Rinks (contest puzzle)

This week's puzzle (pdf, puz, pdf solution) is a contest! The meta answer is a four-letter entry in the grid which could also have been a theme answer. Send in your answer to the email in the right sidebar by Sunday, December 23 at noon Eastern for a chance to win. A randomly chosen correct entry will win a year's subscription to Bewilderingly Puzzles (or, if they're already a subscriber, a puzzle subscription of their choice*).

*Other than PuzzleLux, that is. I'm not made of money!

Puzzle #93: Fifth Columnists

It's again been a while since I've posted a new one on the blog, so here's a mini puzzle (pdf, puz, pdf solution) to tide you over for a bit. Enjoy!