Deduce #7: The café — the solution

The Deduce puzzle from August 21, 2026, worked through clue by clue: 7 clues, 3 rounds of crossing off, and no guessing anywhere.

The puzzle

Four people — Jonah, Vic, Marco and Wes — and three things to work out about each: their drink, pastry and time. The clues only ever rule things out.

1. Marco is the juice drinker.
2. Wes is exactly 3 hours after the one with the muffin.
3. Vic is the one at 10am.
4. The tea drinker is not the one at 9am.
5. The one with the brownie is earlier than the lemonade drinker.
6. The one with the bagel is the one at 10am.
7. The one with the muffin is earlier than the juice drinker.

The walkthrough

A round is one pass over the clues. Each round applies what the last one settled; every step below is an elimination the clues force, in the order a solver would take them.

Round 1

Start with every possibility open, and take the clues in order.

Clue 1, “Marco is the juice drinker”: juice comes off Jonah, Vic and Wes. That settles it: Marco’s drink is juice.

Clue 2, “Wes is exactly 3 hours after the one with the muffin”: muffin comes off Wes; 9am, 10am and 11am come off Wes. That settles it: Wes is at noon.

Clue 3, “Vic is the one at 10am”: 10am comes off Jonah and Marco. That settles it: Vic is at 10am.

Clue 5, “The one with the brownie is earlier than the lemonade drinker”: brownie comes off Wes.

Clue 6, “The one with the bagel is the one at 10am”: bagel comes off Jonah, Marco and Wes. That settles it: Vic’s pastry is bagel and Wes’s pastry is croissant.

Clue 7, “The one with the muffin is earlier than the juice drinker”: muffin comes off Marco; noon comes off Jonah; 9am comes off Marco.

Round 2

Go back over the clues with the new facts in hand.

Croissant is Wes’s, so it comes off Jonah and Marco. That settles it: Marco’s pastry is brownie.

Nobody but Jonah can still have muffin, so Jonah’s pastry is muffin.

noon is Wes’s, so it comes off Marco. That settles it: Marco is at 11am.

Nobody but Jonah can still have 9am, so Jonah is at 9am.

Clue 4, “The tea drinker is not the one at 9am”: tea comes off Jonah.

Clue 5, “The one with the brownie is earlier than the lemonade drinker”: lemonade comes off Jonah and Vic. That settles it: Jonah’s drink is water.

Round 3

Go back over the clues with the new facts in hand.

Water is Jonah’s, so it comes off Vic and Wes. That settles it: Vic’s drink is tea.

Tea is Vic’s, so it comes off Wes. That settles it: Wes’s drink is lemonade.

The answer

Previous: Deduce #6 (Thu, Aug 20) · Next: Deduce #8 (Sat, Aug 22)

About Deduce

Deduce is Noggin’s daily logic grid: four people, three things to work out about each, and clues that never hand you an answer. Every puzzle has exactly one solution and can be finished by crossing off alone. How to play Deduce, or play today’s.