Year of the Snache
Cigar Box Puzzle Kit
Cigar Puzzle Box (IPP) by Kelly Snache
One benefit to being a student of cultural history is you can celebrate the new year more than once per annum! The traditional east Asian lunar calendar follows a repeating twelve-year cycle, with each year represented by a different animal from the Chinese zodiac. Former Karakuri Creation Group artist Shiro Tajima had a set of zodiac inspired boxes that included nine of the twelve animals: Rat: shu 鼠,Ox: niu 牛, Tiger: hu 虎, Rabbit: tu 兔, Dragon: long 龍, Snake: she 蛇, Horse: ma 馬, Sheep: yang 羊, Monkey: hou. I’ve written about a few of these before. He never managed to completed the series, with a: 猴, Rooster: ji 雞, Dog: gou 狗, or Pig: zhu 豬. We now find ourselves at that time of year again – goodbye Year of the Dragon, hello Year of the Snake! It’s an opportune time to celebrate the uniquely puzzling and creative mind of master puzzle maker Kelly Snache.
it won’t be blown over so easily …
While I have been particularly fond of Kelly’s more elaborate creations, where he builds almost everything from scratch, he is well known for his more common design technique of retrofitting vintage cigar and other unique keepsake boxes. Inside the classic cigar box waits all manner of clever locking mechanisms, requiring proper movements of the box via gravity or external devices like knobs or magnets. Outside, the boxes look innocent enough, but inside, there is a riot of exotic wooden devices keeping things shut tight. It takes an unusual mind to come up with so many different hidden devices, and Kelly seems to have an endless supply. So it was a distinct pleasure to be able to catch a glimmer of that process first hand, when he led a cigar box puzzle box making workshop at IPP Houston last year.
The novel concept of his special IPP Cigar Box Puzzle kits is that they are modular and expandable. For the workshop, he provided participants with a vintage cigar box, of course, and the parts to build two separate and independent locking mechanisms to hide inside. Kel had a little fun with one of these mechanisms, shaping one of the main pieces like a rocket to propel the theme of the event. He explains his thought process about the project.
puzzle propulsion mechanism
“While puzzle making can require exacting precision as a builder, I wanted folks to get a feel for the nuances of the build. By having to find just the right location by experimenting folks got the chance to feel the joy of honing in on making a puzzle work perfectly, while at the same time experiencing that there is wiggle room, and not all needs to be perfect, but work as intended.
The cigar box was a great learning tool as I began so many years ago, knowing that just maybe since the cost investment in the starter box was low, just maybe I would trade that position for challenging myself even more. The Cigar Box Puzzle Kit is actually a 4 stage puzzle, being added onto each year, for four years. Year number two was celebrated with IPP and the workshop held. To make last year’s mechanism special it was designed like a rocket in alignment with last year’s theme. What’s next, hmm, time will tell.”
it’s not actually lettin’ it all hang out
Kelly mentions having to hone in on the sweet spot to make the puzzle work perfectly. This was a step many people experienced with frustration, interest and eventual understanding. Placing certain components required proper alignment, but could be done with some wiggle room and adjustments. Experimentation and testing were required before gluing the pieces into final position. It was fun insight into Kel’s typical build process. He also mentions how these boxes were designed for four separate locking mechanisms to be built inside. Two were provided at the workshop, and two future mechanisms are planned at some point in the future. Box owners can then choose to add these extra builds into their boxes. It’s a great idea and will renew the experience all over again.
100 Year Old Cigar by Maks Pazuniak
Here’s a toast to Kelly in the Year of the Snake. For his Cigar Boxes, I chose a smoky cigar themed cocktail that was created by well known bartender and spirits personality Maks Pazuniak. Maks and his friend Kirk Estopinal published a slim cocktail book called Beta Cocktails years ago which is somewhat of a cult underground classic. Naturally I have featured many drinks from those pages.
rolling a cigar
Pazuniak’s smoky cigar drink, on the other hand, is featured in Brooklyn Bartender: A Modern Guide to Cocktails and Spirits, edited by Carey Jones, 2016, published the same year that his signature Bushwick bar Jupiter Disco opened. The cocktail is sort of like a Boulevardier, that classic combination of whiskey, vermouth, and amaro, except with a hefty base of aged rum rather than whiskey. The drink is meant to evoke the experience of a fine old cigar, and it certainly has a complex and smoky presence. I’m not sure it’s any healthier than an actual cigar, but at least your upholstery won’t smell so bad. Cheers!
a smoking good time
100 Year Old Cigar by Maks Pazuniak
1 ½ oz aged rum
½ oz Cynar
½ oz Benedictine
¼ oz peaty scotch
1 dash Angostura bitters
Absinthe rinse
Stir the ingredients together with ice and strain into the prepared glass. No official garnish.
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