Fireball Contest May 27, 2026

Fireball Grid: not long; Meta: :( [4.13 avg; 4 ratings] rate it

Fireball Contest: “Bottoms Up!” by Patrick Berry – Jeffmiz’s write-up

Hello again Crossworld!  Jeff here again, it’s a Saturday night and I have about 30 minutes to solve this puzzle, look for the meta answer, and then type up my thoughts before going to sleep to prep for a long day outside tomorrow.  My chances of solving this? Not good.

Anyhoo, today’s contest asks us to find an eight-letter word hinted at by this puzzle.  Given this title, “Bottoms Up!,” I immediately thought of:

• Looking at the answers in reverse
• Drinking (which I did too much of last night) and words for “cheers”
• Rear ends – as a dad of three teen/pre-teen boys, this is a prevalent topic of discussion

Smooth grid by the inimitable Patrick Berry.  Noticed the long downs (4,8,29,37) and lots of As and Es throughout the grid.  Feel like I’m seeing the word REAR a lot (see above).

Given my time contraint, I didn’t make much progress on this one.  But here’s the explanation:

Each word in the four longest Down entries can become a new word if one or more of its
bottom letters are rotated to the top, as follows:

F(REE) -> (REE)F / VER(SE) -> (SE)VER
EART(H) -> (H)EART / ANGE(L) -> (L)ANGE
ED(WARD) -> (WARD)ED / L(EAR) -> (EAR)L
COS(TA) -> (TA)COS / ME(SA) -> (SA)ME

Each of these new words maps to another clue in the puzzle:

SAME -> 5A: All the ___ -> TIME
HEART -> 9A: Posthumous donation -> ORGAN
REEF -> 19A: Coral formation -> ATOLL
WARDED -> 25A: Fended (off) -> STAVED
LANGE -> 65A: Oscar-winning actress Jessica -> TANDY
TACOS -> 69A: Food with shells -> EGGS
SEVER -> 74A: Cleave -> REND
EARL -> 31D: British title -> SIR

The first letters of the original answers to these clues (read in clue order, Acrosses followed by Downs) spell the answer to the puzzle: TOASTERS.

Yet another great puzzle by Sir Patrick.