Smooth as a Millpond

Hmm, it took me a few guesses to get the answer. BUTTER was obvious, but how did SCOTCH come into it?

Aha. I saw scotch now.

Same question as Ben.

Thanks, Cap’n Rick! Calls for a wee dram of single malt!

Great puzzle, Cap'n Rick! Smooth and enjoyable - perfect for the SSS!

Found BUTTER right away. Took a minute to find SCOTCH. First thought was that I was looking for a simile with BUTTER, but that didn't work. Then tried the clues. Clever puzzle, Rick!

Printed and did on paper as per my usual style...had the first 6 letter as my first answer but then based on the title you had chosen, knew something "deeper" was up. Gave it a second thought before heading to Crosshare and was able to get the 12 letter answer (or the 2 6s) without even seeing that oyu had added nudges to the Muggles site. Thanks Cap'n Rick!

I thought for the second word we would go for the opposite--White as a Sheet, Pretty as a Picture, Thin as a Rail... I ran aground for a while, but ultimately got it.

Got BUTTER right away but needed the nudge to get SCOTCH. Very nice!

Oh. UGLY as sin. I thought EASY as sin was a lot more common an expression (although easy as ABC should have given warning bells) and so I tried to enter BETTER. So... smooth as butter.

SSSmoooth as always Cap’n. Welcome to Sundays! Double duty on the metas this week and the mechanisms on this one! A pat of butter from the ram with a wee dram o Johnnie Walker any day of the week…. Thanks again for the great puzzles!

I got Scotch right away and all the similes for the words except for Sin. I had Guilty as Sin. I knew the 12 letter word had to have Scotch in it, so the other 6 letter word had to be Butter. That's when I realized it was Ugly as Sin. Very clever meta, although it had me stumped for a while. Thanks, Cap'n!

I’m correct with BUTTER, from the similes, but I should have also noticed SCOTCH from the starts of the six starred clues. Nice! Thanks, Cap’n!

Ahh..... saw BUTTER right away but it took walking away and coming back to it to find the SCOTCH. Ironic since BUTTERSCOTCH is one of my fave flavors. Thanks Capn!! (BTW SMOOTH as BUTTER was my first failed guess - even tho I KNEW that couldn't be it since it was in the title. Well done!!!

Very fun, thanks! Initially had myself persuaded that it was Guilty as Sin, instead of Ugly. Plus I swapped the order of the second and third grid entries. So I had BTGTER and I was like 'well, that's not anything.' So then I was like, maybe there are alternate similes (yes, at this point I should have known I was beyond SSS territory :)). Black as NIGHT, Thick as a BRICK (?), Guilty as CHARGED [not really a simile, but I was on a roll], Tough as NAILS, Easy as PIE, Red as a ROSE(?). NBCNPR. Hmm, NBC is an alt to 61A, and NPR is also a network...and this is when I finally saw the flashing neon "OVERTHINKING" sign. Went back and fixed Guilty to Ugly, then nudge 3 pointed out that the grid was important and I realized I had the order flipped. Simple from there. :)

I saw “Scotch” first. Then, I got caught up in “sin” Finally saw the ugly truth.

Thanks for the puzzle. It was fun!

Very tasty for a Sunday sundae. Once I saw from the first nudge that there were asterisks (which I hadn't seen on the PUZ layout because they were tiny and unexpectedly at the end of the clues), it was a fast solve to SCOTCH. I then had a hunch the other word was BUTTER. I wasn't sure at first how to generate it from glancing at the grid, but in a few more seconds I took another look at the central entry SIMILES (39A), and everything rapidly and satisfyingly fell into place - confirming my hunch. Didn't need the other nudges. Thanks

Delicious.

Good as gold!

Guilty as Sin threw me off track for a while. Now I'll always think of Ugly. :) Thanks for the fun!

Evil as SIN, makes it BETTER. And DEWAR'S DOUBLE is a better Scotch. But sadly, this answer was rejected. I should have known Rick wouldn't settle for anything but a single malt.

That took a long time because “guilty as sin” was way more common in my world than “ugly as sin.” Maybe we were just too polite!

I found the comparison words before looking at the nudges, and initially was thinking this was going to use comedians somehow, with RED (fox) as a beet, ) (lewis) BLACK as coal, (alan) THICKe as thieves …. especially with Bob Newhart so prominently in the puzzle. Plus there was ANNA (gastmeyer), FLIP (wilson), though these weren’t asterisks. Finally figured I must have a mistake, since BGTTER was so close to a word. Backsolved to get the U, and “scotch” soon fell as well.

Great Sunday challenge!

My problem is that I got EVIL not UGLY! I ended up with BETTER and wanted to tie it to SEX somehow but could not get 12 letters. Then I said "UGLY AS SIN" to get BUTTER and desperately wanted to make it SMOOTH AS BUTTER but got nowhere. So I looked at the clue answers CSTLAB and got nothing, hmm what if...and sure 'nuf SCOTCH (since obviously you could not spell the real smooth whisky, BOURBON, with 6 letters). Nice one Cap, probably more a 2 than a 1 but still clever and once again GREAT fill.

great puzzle, thanks!

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