NYT Strands today — hints, spangram and answers for game #196 (Sunday, September 15 2024)

1. Today's hints

2. Today's answer

3. Yesterday's answer

Need a bit of help with NYT Strands today? Today's theme — "On the rocks" — will get you in the right ball park straight away, but isn't as easy as it might seem.

Below, we've compiled some useful hints for Strands #196, as well as the answers, should it come to that. We'll start off with some clues, before building up to the full answer for Strands #196, so read on if you need a little help.

Warning: Spoilers lie ahead for Strands #196.

Today's NYT Strands answer — Today's theme and hints

The official theme for NYT Strands #196 is... "On the rocks".

And here's an unofficial hint from me: "A very specific drink."

If you're still in the dark, here are some useful words to give you those valuable clue tokens:

• TEAR
• DEER
• DEAR
• NEAT
• WILDS
• WOULD
• REAR
  

Still struggling? The spangram will give you a hint about the connection word. Today, it starts with 'O' and ends in 'D'.

Scroll down to find out what it is...

It's OLDFASHIONED.

Today's Strands answers

So, what are today's Strands answers for game #196?

Drumroll, please...

• WHISKEY
• BITTERS
• SUGAR
• WATER
• CHERRY
• ORANGE

..and the spangram was OLDFASHIONED.

Strands #196

“On the rocks”

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Hi Strands fans. This one is pretty tricky if you're not a cocktail drinker - and even then you may not be familiar with exactly what goes into the perfect Old Fashioned.

I can't say it's my favorite, but I have at least had a couple in my time, so I was at a slight advantage. Though it still took me a while to figure out what this was about - when I found WHISKEY in the top-left corner, my assumption was that this was about spirits more generally.

It was only when I found BITTERS in the top-right corner that I realized this was about the OLDFASHIONED cocktail. That spangram was so long that it reached the left side of the grid twice, neatly cordoning off SUGAR in the process.

From there it was a case of racking my brains and trying to remember the other ingredients. WATER seemed likely, when I spotted it along the bottom, and that cleared a path for CHERRY. That left just ORANGE in the bottom right to complete the puzzle.

Yesterday's Strands answers

Reading this in a later time zone? You can find the full article on yesterday's Strands answers for game #195 right here .