This is ‘Shaken & Stirred’, a 500-piecer from a new-to-me brand, Spumoni Studios. While buying some new puzzles last month, I decided to add this one to my order at the last minute because it looked so different. I hadn’t seen this puzzle or brand on my Instagram feed, so I thought I would take a chance on it.

The assembly of this puzzle flew by for the first 75%. It was only when I reached the middle portion with the frog that I slowed down a bit. As usual, my husband joined in towards the end, and we completed it with little issue. The outer edge of this puzzle was really satisfying to work on. There are many little collections of different elements and text that were easily identifiable, making it straightforward to pick out which pieces go where. I always enjoy puzzles with artwork like this because of how smoothly everything comes together.

The artwork is exceptionally well designed. It feels like Spumoni Studios had a professional designer on staff who crafted this puzzle. The colors are well chosen, the typography is spot on, and my only real critique is that the frog has elements of a trace function on it where a hand-drawn illustration would have been nicer. This puzzle had a great combination of easy and hard elements. The ‘Shaken’ and ‘Stirred’ text was moderately challenging due to the many repeating vertical elements in each word, but sorting by piece shape helped quite a bit. Sorting by color was also very effective, as there are only four distinct colors besides the dark background. Within each color section, the elements varied enough to make it easy to figure out where each piece belonged. Overall, this was a very fun build.

In terms of quality, this puzzle was generally just okay. The most disappointing aspect was the number of pieces that were dinged and bent in places. For a used puzzle, that would be understandable, but this one was brand new. The finish is also quite shiny, so overhead lighting could be an issue. There were multiple false fits (including one around the 1:36 mark where I fit three different pieces in the same spot), and you had to be careful when detaching pieces, as the top was prone to peeling up from the cardboard backer. The box that I received was also slightly dinged because the cardboard it was made out of was on the thinner side.

If I could change anything on this puzzle, it would mostly be to fix the manufacturing issues. The puzzle itself is relatively cheap at $16 and given it is only a 500-piece puzzle I’m not expecting the best puzzle in the world but looking for new materials and higher quality control would really help this puzzle out.

I wouldn’t recommend buying this puzzle brand new, but if you come across it used, I would say give it a try. There are four other puzzles by this brand with a similar style if you like the look. They don’t seem to be carried by many stores, but if you Google, you might find one in your area. I bought this one here off of Puzzledly and as of writing this, it’s still available.

Brand: Spumoni Studios
Title: Shaken & Stirred
Pieces: 500
Artist: Not Listed