Distilled: A Spirited Strategy Game, Highly-Thematic Euro Game, Strie for The Title of Master Distiller, 30 Minute Play Time, for 1 to 5 Players, Ages 14 and up

Product Information

Distilled has you doing this from round one, which in a seven round game is very much appreciated; but it throws you in and has you puzzling out how to make your first spirit straight from the off. It’s fair to say that humans enjoy alcohol—at least the majority who decide to take part in such beverages. Each tasting flight—a recipe list, chosen during setup for all players—has a list of seven potential recipes, and players can only distill the recipes they have unlocked.

Every batch of booze you distil needs ingredients; namely water, sugars (grains, vegetables, or fruits), and yeast.I think the theme and mechanics work so well in tandem with each other, and on top of everything, the game is simply great fun. To age spirits you place the stack of cards in your warehouse and add a face down flavour card to the stack. But if unusual and interesting is the whiff of the innards, then what are the tones, the highlights, the enriching supplementary flavours? As you are making your spirits you can sell them for cash to get more ingredients or the aforementioned upgrades. And considering this is the first foray into the world of game design for this team, they have done an outstanding job.

But, that said, the base game and components are all produced at an excellent standard and the retail version of the game is still superb.Ingredients placed in the washback are used in creating a spirit and at least one Yeast, Sugar and Water card must be used. It’s a really clever way of integrating a little thematic touch to the game and it also stops that distilling phase from becoming a mechanical hoop to jump through each round. It warned me to stop and informed me not to throw away the empty punchboards after popping out the components. The better the ingredients, the better the Spirit Points (VPs), and the more money you can make from selling your brew, ready to repeat the cycle again.

The way the goals are displayed and figuring out your "path" through them is really fun and adds a nice twist to the gameplay.A typical round is made up of four phases; Market, Distill, Sell and Age phase and players will gain "Spirit" points over the course of seven rounds.