FOURSURE
September 27, 2026 Puzzle Breakdown
Four groups, four words each — here's the connections between today's words.
How everyone did today
Fast Food menu items
Milkshake, Fries, Onion Rings, Soda
We start off today on familiar ground with a trip to the drive-thru. Fries, onion rings, soda, and a milkshake are all standard items you would find on nearly any fast food menu. It is an easy warm-up order to get the board started before things get complicated.
___ Bun
Burger, Hot Dog, Bao, Pretzel
Each of these can comfortably precede the word bun to complete a familiar carb vehicle. Burger and hot dog are everyday cookout staples, while pretzel and bao lean a bit more specialized, even if saying bao bun is technically redundant. It is a neat, straightforward fill-in-the-blank for the second tier today.
Sandwich cookies
Oreo, Macaron, Spitzbuben, Oatmeal Cream
Every entry here puts a filling between two baked layers, making them all sandwich cookies. You likely spotted the lunchbox staples right away, though the Swiss jam-filled spitzbuben and delicate French macaron were meant to test your bakery vocabulary. It was the second-hardest group today, mostly because we assumed spitzbuben might make you pause.
French Presidents
Hollande, Sarkozy, Chirac, Mitterrand
Taking the top difficulty spot today requires a trip across the Atlantic and a quick tour through modern political history. Francois Hollande, Nicolas Sarkozy, Jacques Chirac, and Francois Mitterrand all held the keys to the Elysee Palace as presidents of France during the Fifth Republic. If you got tripped up, it was likely because you were looking for sauces, artists, or philosophers instead of heads of state.
Why these four groups
This grid leans heavily into culinary misdirection before pivoting into European politics to close things out. The primary trap lies in the overlap between fast food staples and bun varieties, where Burger and Hot Dog desperately want to sit alongside Fries and Soda, while Pretzel and Bao pull toward baked snacks. Meanwhile, Macaron and Spitzbuben introduce an international flair that playfully echoes the European tilt of the final set. The difficulty curve holds firm because the diner classics remain too straightforward to disrupt, leaving Hollande, Sarkozy, Chirac, and Mitterrand as an airtight trivia exit ramp.