Can I help you a little today? Today's puzzle - "raise a glass" - is not very ambiguous, but may require knowledge of the drink to get through it unharmed.

Below we've compiled some useful tips for Strand#82 and the answer to that. We'll start with a few clues before building the full answer for Strand #82, so read on if you need a bit of help.

Warning: Spoilers are ahead for Strand #82.  

The official theme of NYT Strand #82 is:.. "Raise the glass".

And here's an unofficial tip from me: "I'm upset and not stirred.

If you're still in the dark, here are some useful words to give those valuable clue tokens:

Still struggling? Spangram will give you tips about connecting words. Today, it starts with 'C' and ends with 'S'.

Scroll down to find out what it is...

So what is the answer for today's strand in game #81?

Drum roll, please...

...And the spangram was a cocktail.

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hi chain. Another simple thing today, as long as you know your cocktail menu inside out. 

At first I thought that the theme of "raising a glass" was related to the type of wine. But soon I did not begin to look for the "M" in the "merlot", I found spangram: cocktails, straddling from the top to the bottom of the board.

Soon abandoned my search for wine and cocktails flowed as fast as they have on nights in my 20s.

Gimlet left me spritz to find it just on the right side of the board in the lower right corner.

Margarita took out most of the letters on the left and easily filled the upper corners. Mojito followed, leaving the 'S', 'O', 'R' and 'U' to decode it just sour. Nice, easy round.

Are you reading this in a later time zone? You can find the full article of yesterday's Strand answer for game #81 right here.