What? He drinks on the job? Intoxicated Braze can’t define ln (Puzzle No. 3,323)

I normally avoid buying a bottle of wine just because there’s a cute animal, a bad pun, or some other attraction on the label, but sometimes you have to make an exception.  With a name like Cryptic Red, I had to check this out.  However, the contents looked interesting as well.  I’m partial to traditional (think Bordeaux) and non-traditional blends, both red and white: they’re a lot like combining different types of wordplay in a clue for a more complex and challenging solve.

Tasting notes: Nice medium garnet color,  off-clear (which is good: not excessively filtered), leggy.  Tart cherry aromas getting broader with more time in the glass.  Big mouthfilling start continues with the cherry flavors giving way to blackberry peppery zinfandel in the middle.  Medium-full body, substantive.  Pleasant medium-length finish with clean raspberry fruit and light tannins, a little warm (14.3%).  Very impressive: excellent winemaking and blending, a serious wine to accompany good food.  The only disappointment with this wine was the lame anagramming on the back label identifying the contents as a cabernet sauvignon/zinfandel/petite sirah blend.  (score 8/10).

Here’s this week’s puzzle

Link to puzzle: http://www.thenation.com/article/179481/puzzle-no-3323 

Degree of difficulty (by standards of this weekly puzzle): easy to moderate

Hozom’s comment: And the Lits Keep on Coming! in which Hot and Trazom crow over some of their favorite exclamation point clues.  Now there’s something for an intrepid crossword statistician to analyze: what constructors come up with the most and lits, and who can keep up the longest batting streak of including one in each regularly scheduled puzzle?

Weekly cluing challenge over at Word Salad: LITERAL