Alright, let me tell you about my little adventure with the crossword puzzle yesterday morning. Just sitting there with my coffee, trying to get the brain working, you know how it is. Most of it was going smoothly, ticking along, filling in the squares.
Then I hit this one clue: cold sweetened beverage made from ground rice. Five letters. Five letters! My mind just drew a blank for a solid minute.
First thing that popped into my head was Horchata. Love that stuff. Creamy, cinnamony, definitely made from rice sometimes. But H-O-R-C-H-A-T-A is way too long. So, scratch that.
What else? Rice milk? Again, too long, and not always sweetened in the way I think a crossword clue implies. I started thinking about other rice things. Rice pudding? Nope, not a beverage. Sake? Not usually sweet like that and often not served ice-cold, plus it’s fermented, not just ground rice and sweetener.
Thinking Outside the Box (or Grid)
I stared at the grid. I had a couple of letters from the crossing words, looked like maybe _ _ K _ E. Or maybe _ I K _ E? Not super helpful yet.
Ground rice… ground rice… My brain kept circling back to Horchata. Was there a nickname? A shorter version? Couldn’t think of one.
Okay, maybe it wasn’t Mexican Horchata. Are there other rice drinks like that? I vaguely remembered trying different things over the years. Asian cuisines have lots of rice-based stuff.
- Tried thinking about Japanese drinks. Amazake? Too long.
- Chinese? Mijiu? Nah, that’s wine.
- Korean? Hold on…
There’s that sweet Korean drink, often served after a meal, sometimes has rice grains floating in it. What’s it called again? It’s definitely cold, sweet, and made from rice. Sik… Sik… Sikye! Yeah, that sounds right. Let’s check the spelling. S-I-K-H-Y-E? No, usually S-I-K-Y-E. Five letters!
Bingo!
Felt pretty sure about that one. SIKYE. Cold? Check. Sweetened? Check. Made from rice (okay, malted barley powder and rice, close enough for a crossword maybe)? Check. Five letters? Check. It fit the letters I had already, too.
Penciled it in. Felt that little rush of satisfaction, you know? When you wrestle with a clue for a bit and then finally nail it. Took a bit of mental gymnastics, thinking about different food cultures, but got there in the end. Just goes to show, sometimes you gotta look beyond the obvious first thought.
