Let the bells ring and confetti fall, last night the Mercury crowned the grand prize winner of our online treasure hunt, THE DEL MONTE CODE… and that winner is…
MARIA GALINDO MONTOYA of Portland! (Pictured here with Del Monte Corp. mascot, MONTY, the Genetically Engineered Ear of Corn.)

Maria used her sharp-as-a-goddamn whip brain to work through a four week series of near-impossible puzzles—all hidden in various sections of portlandmercury.com—and won the new 30 gig black video iPod (generously supplied by The Mac Store)! Congratulations, Maria! Your brain is surely the envy of all Portlanders!

It should also be noted that in a field of 200 contestants, only ten people made it all the way to the final section of the puzzle, and of those ten only FOUR actually deduced the correct answer (which was, of course, CREAMED CORN). And so, a big tip o’ the hat to Maria’s brainy runners up: Seth Denlinger, Kaya Blauvelt, and Tim Brown who all received the hot new Mercury “Tiger” t-shirt for their trouble.

Thanks to everyone who participated in THE DEL MONTE CODE, and if you want more info on how Maria figured out the answer… stick around after the jump!

The key to solving the Del Monte Code started with getting the job as a cryptologist (located in our classified section), and solving the first riddle:
What other letter fits in the following series: BCDEIKOX?
Answer: The letter H. All of the letters in the series flipped vertically remain the same.
A correct answer won the cryptologist a URL which took them to a vintage Del Monte corporation film, wherein the company's creepy president warned employees of a threat from a musical figure who knows too much, adding that "Annie Graham can tell you who this CIA Rebel is," while referencing the "banned pages."

The anagram (Annie Graham) of CIA Rebel is "Liberace" whose secret message was indeed found on the Mercury "BAND PAGE." A Liberace recording then relayed a musical code (The Liberace Sequence) to be used later, then directed the cryptologist to a "rodeo"—in this case the Mercury's Arts Rodeo section.

In the Rodeo section was a "review" of a Nagel retrospective, which spoke of the artist's fascination with goddess worship (a fascination shared with Liberace) and his obsession with the model from Duran Duran's "Rio" album cover, who at one point worked for Del Monte and defected with sensitive information. The three planned on publishing a secret cookbook using classified Del Monte recipes. Oh, and Nagel was deathly allergic to peanuts.

This review also mentioned a cult who adopted Nagel's style "as a mantel signifying a portal to the divine. Those who would wish to unlock Nagel's secrets need look no further than one of these humble salons, ubiquitous in their mystery." This clue led to an online nail salon advertisement, and a grid of letters and numbers, which could be solved using The Liberace Sequence, resulting in the first word of our two word answer: EAMDCRAY.

Then it was off to Blog Town which informed the cryptologists to head to their local Mac Store (provider of our teriffic grand prize) to get a secret code word revealing a new Del Monte restaurant called "CANZ!" (a clue cleverly hidden in our Restaurant Search engine). Sharp eyes noticed that in the photo of CANZ!, the window bore a sign, which reversed, gave us our second word in our two word answer: ORNCAY.

And finally, this took our intrepid cryptologists to the final clue, "The Death of Nagel" video in which the artist is poisoned by Del Monte spies (with peanuts, no less). Yet before he died, he left a message telling the cryptologists to meet at ACME (1305 SE 8th) and bring the can that killed him. Putting the two words together, we have EAMDCRAY ORNCAY, or translated from pig-latin, CREAMED CORN.

JESUS CHRIST! THAT'S A FUCKING HARD PUZZLE! And yet Maria and her compatriots did a great job solving it—so once again CONGRATULATIONS!

And thanks to everyone who helped out in making THE DEL MONTE CODE: Our puzzle creator Nancy Hartunian, Lucas Jones, Scott Moore, Matt Davis, Zach Hull, Rachael Shotwell, Demo Fregosi, the gang at the Mercury, the employees and kind folks at The Mac Store, and ACME! Now, I'm going to sleep, because my brain hurts.