Sloyd's puzzles, manufactured by Tomas Lindén, are well known for their characteristic birch wood and high-quality manufacturing, which without it the Tipaton Vodkabox would be impossible to make, due to its high precision mechanism.

The origin of the Vodkabox goes back to the times of WW2, as Finnish soldiers had a lot of spare time waiting for the Russians and did all kinds of woodwork. Looking at it today, I'm glad the Russians didn't rush into Finland, otherwise we would've never seen these brilliant works of art.

The lock mechanism is comprised by a double gravity pin, and you need 5 different moves to open it. It's up to you to decipher what the "double gravity" means, or I would be telling the secret to its solution.

This is a fairly large puzzle, which is expected, in order to accommodate a Vodka bottle. It's outer measurements are 27 x 8.2 x 8.8cm (10.6" x 3.2" x 3.5"), and you can store a bottle with the maximum size of 25 x 7cm. Be sure of this measurements if you plan to offer the puzzle to someone, because not all bottles will fit. You have to solve it before you're able to put the bottle inside, though. Also, the Vodka bottle is not included.

The Tipaton Vodkabox has the same principle of the more traditional Trick Boxes or Puzzle Boxes, where you have a set of different moves, sometimes only one, that you need to discover if you want to open them. Usually (almost always), these required moves are counter-intuitive and you really need to think outside the box (pun intended).

When it comes to difficulty, the Vodkabox is a serious challenge. I've had this puzzle for almost a year now and I remember it took me a while to solve it the first time. When preparing for the review and taking photos of it, I thought it would be essential to solve it again. My first thought was that it wouldn't be that hard, because I had solved it before, how hard it would be to do it again? - Wrong assumption! When it comes to puzzles, never assume it's a done deal. I had an idea of how the mechanism worked, but the exact steps vanished from my memory. It took me about 15 minutes to open it again. I hope this gives you a sense of its difficulty...

The photos, unfortunately, don't feature an actual Vodka bottle, mostly because I didn't find a small enough bottle to fit inside the box. I ended up buying one, but it was slightly over-sized, and that was the smaller I could find here. No worries, though, as you don't need a Vodka bottle to fully enjoy the puzzle, or you could end up seeing double boxes.

Closing Comments:

The Tipaton Vodkabox is a superb puzzle box. Its clever mechanism will surely intrigue you for a while, but nothing that will make you throw it out the window. If I had to rate its difficulty, I'd say it's a 4/5. There are much harder ones out there (Double Squared, for example). I highly recommend it, and also makes a perfect gift.

Availability: You can get the Tipaton Vodkabox at Sloyd.fi for €45. There's also a similar puzzle, the Winebox, but that's currently out of stock at the moment.