August Cocktail: Dark 'n' Stormy Solution

38 of you solved the August Cocktail puzzle, Dark 'n' Stormy, with 12 solving the original puzzle without any help, and 5 more solving in the first week with a small hint from me. Congratulations to all! Below is the solved grid and an explanation of the final answer. A full solution, including cryptic solutions to every clue, is available for download on my Patreon page. If you haven't joined, sign up at https://www.patreon.com/negronis_cocktails, which will also give you access to future puzzles. The next Cocktail will launch on Saturday, October 14, at 4pm Eastern.

Cheers!

Negroni

Fourteen entries must have an R (arrr!) added to them to make a new word. The first letters of the clues spell out BURIED TREASURE. The entries all cross in pairs, and in fact, when facing North according to the given compass, they make X’s, marking where the “treasure” (a letter) is. These letters, marked in red on the rotated grid above, roughly make two letter arcs, one in the upper half (FEVE), and one in the lower half (TEE). Adding an R once again gives you FEVER and TREE.

FEVER-TREE is a brand of ginger beer that you might use to make a Dark ’n’ Stormy.

This turned out to be the hardest puzzle thus far for several reasons, including the single X in the grid, under which lay the tantalizing phrase ARCH HOARD, the phrase EVE FETE if taken strictly in order, and the unfamiliarity of the brand. Because of the difficulty, I loosened the restriction on wrong guesses for a no help solve, and I gave a hint costing half a point to those who wanted one and had found BURIED TREASURE, hoping to lead them to see the X’s formed by the R words in the grid.

About Me

My name is Martin Reinfried, and in some circles, I am known as Negroni. I have been writing puzzles for a long time, both for work and for fun, and I have always been enamored of cryptic crosswords, especially variety cryptics. I have written several variety cryptics, some for fun, some appearing in the MIT Mystery Hunt, and some published in the National Puzzlers League's Enigma magazine. Most of the variety cryptics I have written can be accessed at negroni.fun/puzzles. I am a software engineer, and I have been a co-founder of a couple of companies, including Shinteki, where I wrote a mobile app to run puzzle-based events. I live in Telluride, CO with my wife Dennise and son Max, and I look forward to providing you with a steady stream of variety cryptic puzzles.