Back in 2021, Paverson Games launched a Kickstarter for a board game about distilling spirits that would release in 2023 to critical acclaim. As a matter of fact, that game, Distilled, went on to be one of our GeekDad Approved games for that year!
Paverson Games has since released two small expansions, but for their final expansion, Cocktails, they’re pulling out all the stops with a new Kickstarter campaign.
What Is Distilled: Cocktails?
Distilled: Cocktails is an expansion for Distilled, and requires the original base game to play. It’s for 1-5 players, ages 13 and up, and takes about 45-150 minutes to play depending on player count. It’s currently seeking funding on Kickstarter, with a pledge level of $49 for a copy of the Cocktails expansion. There are various other pledges available, such as one that includes the base Distilled game, and one that includes a collector’s box that will hold the base game and all the expansions including Cocktails.
Distilled: Cocktails was designed by Dave Beck and Richard Woods, and published by Paverson Games, with illustrations by Erik Evensen.
New to Kickstarter? Check out our crowdfunding primer.
Distilled: Cocktails Components
Note: My review is based on a prototype copy, so it is subject to change and may not reflect final component quality. To see what original Distilled components look like, please refer to my review of Distilled.
Distilled: Cocktails comes with the following components:
- 30 Cocktail Order Cards
- 9 Collector Cards
- 4 Distillery Identity Cards
- 4 Signature Recipe Labels
- 4 Signature Recipe Cards
- 10 Item Cards
- 6 Ingredient Cards
- 6 Distillery Goal Cards
- 12 Distillery Upgrade Cards
- 6 Spirit Award Tokens
- 23 Spirit Label Tiles
- 4 Mixer Dice
- 60 Mixer Tokens
- 30 Cocktail Glass Tokens
- 80 Renown Tokens
- 27 Label Bonus Tiles
- Second Washback Unlock Track and 5 Unlock Tokens
- Order Up Board
- Mixer Board
- World Map Board
- 5 Distillery Expansion Boards
- 5 Label Bonus Boards
- Cocktail Market Board
- 5 150/200 Scoring Tokens
- 12 Replacement Upgrade Cards
- 6 Replacement Identity Cards
In addition to the components needed to make cocktails (we’ll get to those shortly), Distilled: Cocktails introduces a second Washback in the form of a Distillery Expansion Board. Players can pay to temporarily unlock their Washback, allowing them to distill 2 spirits in a single round. There are two sides of the board, used depending on whether you are playing with Cocktails or without.
If playing with cocktails, there is a Cocktail Market Board which will be placed below the regular market. During the Market Phase, you can purchase from the board much like you can purchase from the regular market.
Cocktail Order Cards will get dealt out onto the Cocktail Market Board. The board space a card is on will not only determine the card’s cost, but also how many free Mixer Tokens that you can take from the Mixer Board when you purchase the card.
Each Cocktail Order has a spirit sugar requirement, as well as a choice of two different quality recipes that require Mixers. There are 6 different types of Mixers, with the umbrella being a wild. The Mixers are made of cardboard with the image printed on both sides.
To determine what Mixers are initially available on the Mixer Board, the 4 Mixer Dice will get rolled, and the corresponding Mixers placed onto the board. These are available when purchasing a Cocktail Order, or by purchasing up to 3 at a time during the Market Phase.
Whenever you make a Cocktail, you will earn a certain amount of “Renown.” You will track your Renown on the World Map Board, where you will also unlock small immediate bonuses, as well as potentially getting endgame Spirit Points (the victory points in games of Distilled).
There are two different sides to the 4-layer board: one for 2-3 player games, and a more complex side for 4-5 player games.
Bonus tiles are randomly placed onto the map during setup, which can then be optionally claimed when you sell a spirit. You can only claim a tile in which you have at least one Renown token in each of the two regions indicated. These tiles give you bonuses that you claim immediately.
Whenever you make a Cocktail, you have to use one of your spirits (not Vodka or Moonshine) that you have already sold. To indicate that you’ve used that spirit, you place a Cocktail Glass Token matching the symbol shown on the Cocktail Order onto the particular Spirit Label. These glasses can also be used for endgame bonuses.
The final new mechanic that the Distilled: Cocktails expansion introduces is Collectors. There are 9 different Collector Cards that come with the expansion. During the Sell Phase, if you meet the requirements of what type and value of spirit that a Collector is looking for, you can sell directly to them.
If you have a spirit that you can sell to a Collector, you will not only get the bonus money shown on the Collector’s card, but you will also collect the Label Bonus Tile that is placed under the value and type of recipe of the spirit that you’re selling. These tiles provide endgame bonuses, and are placed onto a Label Bonus Board above your player board.
There are 4 new Distiller Identity cards, along with their corresponding signature ingredients and signature labels. Unsurprisingly, their abilities are directly tied into the new mechanics of the expansion.
There are many additional components to add into the setup, such as more Ingredients, Items, Upgrades, Spirit Award Tokens, and Distillery Goals. There are also several cards that will replace existing Distilled cards, so that the game remains balanced. For example, the ability of the new Column Still Upgrade now specifies that it can only be used once per Distill Phase.
Paverson Games also sent along a 3-D printed prototype of their Dice Cocktail Shaker, which will be an optional purchase during the campaign. You can use the felt-lined shaker to roll the Mixer Dice. And you actually do feel like you’re mixing up a cocktail when you do!
How to Play Distilled: Cocktails
You can download a copy of the rulebook here.
The Goal
The goal of Distilled is to make the most Spirit Points (SP) by the end of the game, thereby becoming the Master Distiller.
Setup
Note: I will be describing a setup of Distilled: Cocktails using all of the expansion elements.
Before playing for the first time, swap any of the replacement cards for the original in the base game. These replacement cards work whether using the Cocktails expansion or not.
Set up Distilled as normal, but with the following changes. (For instructions on base game setup, please refer to my review of Distilled or the Distilled rulebook.)
Give each player an extra metal barrel starting card to place in their storeroom. Add the extra basic market and alcohol cards to their respective piles.
Set up spirit labels as usual, but add 2 extra Moonshine, Vodka, and bronze-tier labels, and 1 extra label for each silver-tier label.
Shuffle the extra distillery upgrades, premium ingredients, and item cards into their respective decks before setting up the premium market.
Add in the extra spirit awards and distillery goals before shuffling and dealing them out.
Form a general supply of the Cocktail Glass tokens.
Distillery Expansion & Second Washback
Give each player a Distillery Expansion Board, and a Label Bonus board. Place the expansion board to the right of the Distillery Board, and the label bonus board above.
Place a Key Token for each player to the left of the Second Washback Unlock Track. Place a Washback Unlocked token on each Expansion Board, locked side up.
World Map & Player Renown Board
Place the World Map board in the center of the table, with the correct side for player count face-up. Mix up the map label bonus tiles face down, and randomly draw and place them face up in the spaces on the World Map.
Place each Player Renown board above their recipe clipboards, and stack 4 Renown Tokens into each of the 4 open spaces on the track. If playing with 2 or 4 players, take spare Renown tokens in an unused player color and cover any of the spots on the map that have black circles (there are 2 per region).
Cocktail Market
Place the Cocktail Market Board below the Premium Market. Shuffle the Cocktail Order cards, and place the deck facedown in the leftmost space on the board. Deal out four cards, face-up, to the right of the deck.
Place the mixer token tray in the center of the table to form a general supply. Place the Mixer Board and Order Up Boards beside the Cocktail Market Board.
Roll the four Mixer Dice, and place the eight corresponding Mixer tokens onto the Mixer Board. Then roll the dice again, and place the dice onto the Order Up Board.
Collectors
Shuffle the Collectors Cards and randomly draw cards equal to the number of players plus 2. Place them in a row in the center of the table.
Mix up the Label Bonus tiles face down, and randomly draw and place two for each Collector Card, in the spaces on the bottoms of the cards. If a tile is drawn showing a region not being used in the selected tasting flight, then discard and draw another.
Gameplay
A game of Distilled: Cocktails will play similarly to a regular game of Distilled, but with a few additions to gameplay. I will only be covering these additions below; for details on Distilled gameplay, refer to my original review.
Forklift Icons
Some of the cards in the premium market and in the Cocktail Orders have Forklift icons on the cards. At the end of the Market Phase, if a card with that icon is being discarded, it will “drag along” the card behind it, so you will discard an extra card. Never discard face-down cards.
Second Washback
During the Market Phase, on your turn you can unlock your second Washback by placing your Key Token on the Second Washback Unlock Track and paying the associated cost. Take an alcohol card, and then flip your Washback Unlocked tile to the unlocked side. Future unlocks will advance your token 1 step to the right, and also increase the cost to unlock.
During the Distill Phase, if the second Washback is unlocked, you may distill a second spirit. The second Washback follows the same requirements as your normal Washback. Perform both distillations, and if you have two different spirits distilled, then take the appropriate spirit labels for each. Should you end up brewing two identical spirits, combine them into one stack and take a single label.
After using the second Washback, flip the Unlocked token back to its locked side.
Cocktails & Mixers Market
During the Market Phase, you may purchase a Cocktail Order. Pay the cost shown, and place the card into either of the two bar spaces on your Distillery Expansion board. Then you may take one Mixer from the market for each dollar spent purchasing the order. Alternatively, you may also pay two dollars to take up to 3 Mixers. On your turn, however, you may only ever take a maximum of one umbrella, which is a wild.
At the end of your turn, if there are 3 or fewer Mixers remaining on the Mixer Board, add the eight Mixers shown on the dice to the Mixer Board, and then re-roll the dice. As a bonus for triggering the refresh, you may take one additional Mixer from the board.
At the end of the Market Phase, discard the rightmost Cocktail Oder card to the discard pile on the far right, shift any cards to the right to fill empty spaces, and draw new Cocktail Order card(s) to fill any empty spaces.
Cocktails Phase
With Distilled: Cocktails, there is the additional Cocktails Phase, which happens immediately after the Age Phase. During the Cocktails Phase, in turn order, you may serve up to 1 Cocktail Order that you have waiting at your bar. In order to serve a cocktail:
- You must have an unused spirit label of the required type for the cocktail in one of your bonus spaces.
- Discard the required Mixers, and gain the Renown shown. Umbrellas are wild, and can be used in place of any other Mixer. You may also discard any 3 Mixers to count as an umbrella.
- Place a matching Cocktail Glass token onto the spirit label used for the cocktail.
- Discard the used Cocktail Order card to the box.
- Place the Renown tokens gained onto the World Map.
Placing Renown on the World Map
Tokens are always taken from the leftmost columns on the Player Renown board. Your first token placed in a game must be in your home region, with additional tokens placed adjacent to those in your player color.
If your token is placed in a space with a bonus, take that bonus immediately. You may place tokens on top of other player’s colors, but you won’t receive a bonus for that space.
World Map and Collector Label Bonus Tiles
During the Sell Phase, when you sell a spirit you may place the spirit label on one of the four spots on the new Label Bonus Board. When you do, immediately gain the small bonus. You may then claim one of the Label Bonus tiles that you qualify for, from either the World Map or one of the Collectors. These tiles will be placed next to the spirit label on the Label Bonus Board.
To gain a World Map tile, you must have at least one Renown in both of the two regions shown next to the tile.
To gain a Collector Label Bonus tile, the spirit you sell must be of the required tier or a signature recipe (if shown) and be worth the stated Spirit Points shown or higher. Immediately gain the money bonus from the Collector card.
Game End
The game ends when everyone has completed Round 7. There are then the following scoring steps, in addition to normal Distilled scoring:
- Collectors Label Bonus tiles: Score the stated points for each icon shown on all of your collected spirit labels, including any in the warehouse.
- Cocktail Glass Collection: Multiply your unique cocktail glasses by the amount of Renown you have unlocked on your Player Renown board.
- Score 3 SP if you have at least one Renown in each of the 4 regions on the World Map. Score 3 SP for each region you have 6 or more Renown.
- Each leftover Mixer is worth $1, for purposes of calculating the 1 SP/$5 endgame bonus.
Why You Should Play Distilled: Cocktails
So, as you can guess from the fact that I gave the original Distilled our GeekDad Approved rating, I’m a fan of the game. Distilled is highly thematic, with gorgeous components and enjoyable, mid-weight gameplay. It’s a game that’s easy to pick up and learn, despite there being so many components and multiple phases to the game.
When I first opened the Distilled: Cocktails expansion, I had a moment of panic seeing the sheer number of pieces inside. This is definitely a big expansion! However, once I started reading through the rules, my panic subsided. There’s thankfully nothing in the expansion that changes the fundamental gameplay of Distilled, but instead adds to what’s already there. That being said, I’m an experienced player of Distilled…trying to add in this expansion if you’re new to the game is not something I’d recommend.
As with the base game, Distilled: Cocktails brings you more great components that fit in seamlessly with the base game. Of course, adding more boards to the game adds in more table space to what is already somewhat of a table hog. I could fit 5 players and the whole expansion onto the 3×5 space on my Origins board game table, but there’s hardly any open space left. You’re probably not going to be playing this one on your coffee table. And you’ll definitely need to allow for a bit more setup time than with a regular game of Distilled.
After the last few years of distilling and selling spirits with Distilled, it’s a great addition to finally be able to use those spirits to mix up some cocktails! Integrating the buying of Cocktail Orders and Mixers into the Market Phase makes things easy on the players, and the process of making the cocktail during its own phase is straightforward. The generation of the Mixers by rolling dice is a mechanic familiar to many gamers as well, and as such, will be a comfortable addition to the game.
There’s a lot more point salad in Distilled: Cocktails thanks to the bonus tiles that you can earn from both the Collectors and the World Map. Some of the endgame Label Bonus tiles can be quite powerful, assuming that you’re both able to make a spirit that qualifies you to sell to a Collector, and that the bonus on that particular tile works with the spirit labels you collect throughout the game. A lot more thought will have to go into where you want to place your spirit labels when you sell a spirit. Do you take a bonus on your board, which gives you an immediate benefit, or do you grab a tile that will help you at the end of the game?
More tactical thought also comes to the Market Phase, as you will not only be making cocktails, but considering if you want to spend the money (and have the ingredients) to unlock your second washback and brew two spirits in the same Distill Phase. More distilled spirits, equals more money and Spirit Points, and also more spirits that are available to make cocktails.
Speaking of the market phase, the cards with Forklift icons work well to provide more churn in the markets, so that players will get a chance to see more of the cards during a game. Of course, this also means that if you see something you like in the market, you might really have to swiftly grab it before it hits the truck. I suspect a lot more people will be using the spirit label bonus that allows them to grab an item from the truck.
For the final expansion to Distilled, Paverson Games is delivering an experience that really gives a comprehensive view of the journey of alcohol spirits, from the purchasing of ingredients, to the distilling process, to selling, to ageing, and finally to mixing the spirits into cocktails that are served up. The World Map and the Renown mechanic, besides providing bonuses to the players, also serve as a thematic way to show how a distiller is becoming better known throughout the world. The Distilled: Cocktails expansion integrates easily into the base game, but you’re not going to want to use all of its elements unless you’ve got at least a few games of straight Distilled under your belt.
For more information or to make a pledge, visit the Distilled: Cocktails Kickstarter page!
Click here to see all our tabletop game reviews.
To subscribe to GeekDad’s tabletop gaming coverage, please copy this link and add it to your RSS reader.
Disclosure: GeekDad received a copy of this game for review purposes.
Fonte: GeekDad - Leia mais