In Reaping the Rewards, I take a look at the finished product from a crowdfunding campaign. Distilled was originally funded through Kickstarter in July 2021, and was delivered to backers at the beginning of this year. This review is adapted from my original Kickstarter Tabletop Alert, updated to reflect the finished game.
Buy ingredients, upgrade your distillery, and deliver your signature recipe as you compete for the tile of Master Distiller!
What Is Distilled?
Distilled is an economic and manufacturing card strategy game for 1-5 players, ages 14 and up, and takes about 30 minutes per person to play. It retails for $89.99 and is available to purchase from games stores, the Paverson Games webstore, or from Amazon.
Distilled was designed by Dave Beck and published by Paverson Games, with illustrations by Erik Evensen.
Distilled Components
Here’s what comes in the box:
- 333 cards (56 x 87mm)
- 187 cardboard tokens
- 68 mini cards (41 x 63mm)
- 43 wooden tokens
- 20 large tasting flight cards
- 5 player boards
- 5 dual-layered recipe boards
- 5 large player reference cards
- 3 main game boards
- 2 rulebooks
- 3 removable source trays with lids and box organizer designed by Game Trayz
I was sent some metal coins, which are of a nice quality and heft. It’s always fun hearing the clink of coins when you’re buying and selling in the game, so I’ve used those in my photos for Reaping the Rewards.
However, those coins are an optional purchase, and also currently sold out. As with many board games, there is an included sheet of coin tokens to punch out and use.
All of the cardboard used in Distilled is thick and high-quality, so you’ll still have a great experience handling the pieces. But let’s face it: if someone sends me metal coins, I’m going to use them. If I had to pay extra for them, I’d likely be perfectly happy with the cardboard. The reverse sides of both the metal and cardboard coins are highly thematic, showing the grains and fruit that are ingredients in the distilling process.
The Distillery Boards are the individual player boards, where you’ll store the various cards you’ll acquire throughout the game, and also distill and sell your spirits. As far as I can tell at a glance, the boards are virtually identical to the ones in the prototype copy I played back in 2021.
What certainly has changed is the design of the Shelf Board. This is where you will keep track of player scores and rounds. There are now spaces at the top for the Spirit Tokens that represent the different recipes that can be distilled during gameplay. These will change depending on which of the several different Recipe Tasting Flights you choose during setup.
Speaking of Spirit Labels, these cardboard tokens are stored in one of the included custom Game Trayz containers. This tray also holds the Player Scoring Tokens, each of which is in a different player color and has an illustration of a different alcohol still. This tray, as well as two smaller accompanying trays, are both barrel-shaped and include clear plastic covers that further the theme.
Another component that has improved for the better is the Recipe Clipboard. These are now made out of two-layer cardboard, which makes it easy to slot in the included cubes, as well as the double-sided Recipe Tasting Flights.
The Recipe Tasting Flights show which liquors can be distilled for the particular game, what ingredients are required to distill them, and how many victory points you’ll get for selling them. They also show what kind of cube you will need to purchase to unlock the recipe. As you can see, the cost of the three different cubes is fixed and shown at the top of the Recipe Clipboard.
Another welcome upgrade to the prototype components can be found with the Spirit Award tokens. Spirit Awards are public awards which can be claimed by the first player who meets their requirement, and give that player bonus Spirit Points. These now look like ribbons awarded to competitors.
The cards are all of uniform high quality, which is good as there are a lot of them in the game. You have market items, flavor cards, and distillery identity cards, among others.
At the start of the game, every player chooses a distiller identity card. Not only do these each have unique abilities within the game, but they have their own signature recipe, with accompanying signature ingredient.
How to Play Distilled
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
Place the Shelf board on the table, with the barrel round marker on the “1” space of the round tracker. Place the basic market board on the table, with all of the basic ingredient and item cards placed on the shown locations.
Set up the Premium Market above it, shuffling the three decks of Premium Item, Premium Ingredient, and Distillery Upgrade cards then place them facedown. Lay out 4 face-up cards from each deck in a row, with the Truck Board placed to the right of those cards. The Truck Board will serve as the discard piles for those three decks.
Shuffle the Flavor cards to create a face-down deck. Place a face-up deck of Alcohol cards next to it.
Place the bronze, silver, and gold recipe cubes, as well as the money, within reach of the players.
Choose a Tasting Flight for the game, and give each player a copy of the flight. Tasting Flight “A” is recommended for a first game.
From the Spirit Label tokens pictured on the Tasting Flight, take 1 label token for each player in the game, and place them in an individual stack at the top of the Shelf Board. Also include 2 Moonshine and Vodka labels per player.
Randomly select a number of Spirit Award tokens equal to the number of players plus one, and place them face up on the table.
Each player gets a Distillery Board, Recipe Clipboard, Player Reference cards, and two Starting Items which consist of a Metal Barrel card and a Glass Bottle card. Those cards are placed on the storeroom space of the Distillery board. The chosen Tasting Flight gets placed on the Recipe Clipboard.
Shuffle the Distiller Identity cards and deal 2 out to each player. Shuffle the Distillery Goals cards and deal out 3 to each player. Then randomly determine the starting player, who will receive the First Player marker.
Each player then selects one of the two Distiller Identity cards to keep, placing the other back in the box. The chosen Identity card will get placed in the Office space of the Distillery board. Players take the starting ingredients and money shown on the backs of their Identity cards, as well as the Signature Recipe and Signature Ingredient matching their Identity card. The recipe token gets slotted into the Recipe Clipboard, while the Signature Ingredient get placed next to their Distillery board.
Finally, each player selects 2 of the 3 Distillery Goal cards they were dealt. They keep those face-down and secret until the end of the game, returning the card not chosen to the game box.
Gameplay
Distilled is played over 7 rounds. There are 4 main Phases to each round, with some actions also taken at the Start and End of each round.
Gameplay starts with the First player, and proceeds clockwise.
Start of Round
If anyone has any “Start of Round” actions on their Identity or Distillery Upgrade cards, these are taken now.
Phase 1: Market Phase
During this phase, players can purchase Recipe Cubes, Basic Ingredient or Item cards from the Basic Market, Premium Ingredient or Item cards, or Distillery Upgrade cards. Prices are shown on the price tags. A player can make as many purchases as they have money to spend, but purchases are made one at a time in turn order. When you are done purchasing, you pass.
Ingredients may go into your pantry or directly into your washback, which is the distilling space on the left of your Distillery Board.
- Recipe cubes go onto a space on your recipe card list. You may now make this recipe if you have the required ingredients shown.
- Basic Ingredients. There is a limit of 2 times/round that you may purchase a basic ingredient.
- Premium ingredient or item cards. You are limited only by the money you have to spend. Item cards go into your storeroom.
- Distillery upgrade cards. These go into one of the 3 upgrade spaces on your board.
Once everyone has passed, you move onto the next phase.
Phase 2: Distill Phase
This is where you’ll make the one spirit for the round which you will either sell, or put into your warehouse to age. This round can be done simultaneously by all players.
At the start of the phase, you may trade any 1 card with a card in the Basic Ingredient market worth the same price or lower.
Next, you will move any cards from your pantry to your washback, or vice-versa, to distill your spirit. You must have at least one card in each of the three row types in order to distill: Yeast, Sugar, and Water.
Next, add 1 Alcohol card for each Sugar card in your washback. Shuffle all the cards in your washback together to form a face-down spirit stack, then remove the top and bottom cards from that stack and place those cards face-up in your pantry. Those represent the toxic head and tail of the distilling process which are removed when making a spirit.
Reveal the remaining cards in your spirit stack. These are the results of your distillation. Compare the results to your recipe list, and you will choose 1 result that matches any recipes that you know to be the spirit you have distilled that round. Add the appropriate barrel card to the spirit stack, and claim the matching Spirit Label.
Phase 3: Sell Phase
This phase is done in turn order, selling just 1 spirit on your turn. You can sell the spirit that you just distilled, as well as any spirits that had been aging in your warehouse in this round, but you must wait until the turn comes back around to you before selling any additional spirits.
Note: If a recipe has a symbol of an hourglass, it must be aged at least one round. If it has a symbol of an hourglass with a red slash through it, then it cannot be aged and must be sold immediately after distilling.
Here are the steps to selling a spirit:
- Lay out the spirit stack including the barrel and any flavor cards (added during aging), and add a bottle to the stack.
- Count the total sell value from both the cards and the recipe, and take that much money from the supply.
- Count the total number of SP (Spirit Points) from the cards as well as the recipe, and the Aged Spirit Flavor Bonus if the spirit was aged, and advance that many spaces on the Spirit Track.
- Place the label from the spirit onto one of the empty spirit label bonus spaces at the top of your Distillery board, and immediately take that bonus.
- Return all cards: starting metal barrel and glass bottle cards go back in your storeroom, premium market bottles go next to your distillery, basic market cards go back to their respective stacks, and premium market cards go to the truck.
Phase 4: Age Phase
Aging is done in turn order, but you will age all spirits in your warehouse on your same turn. Take the following steps to age a liquor:
- Place the spirit stack, without barrel, face-down into an open warehouse space.
- Draw the top card of the Flavor Deck and, without looking, add it face-down to the bottom of the spirit stack.
- Place the barrel card on top of the spirit stack, and then the label on top of that.
If you have a spirit that was in your warehouse from an earlier round that you are continuing to age, just draw the top card of the Flavor Deck and, without looking, add it face-down to the bottom of the spirit stack.
End of Round
Before the start of the next round, do the following:
- Check to see if anyone fulfilled any of the Spirit Awards. If so, earn the SP shown on the award, and flip it over as it can no longer be claimed. If more than one person fulfilled the requirements on the same round, divide the SP equally, rounding up.
- If you did not sell a spirit that round because you were aging, you can offer a tasting to earn some money. You may move back on the Spirit Point track up to 4 SP, earning the equivalent in money.
Once these steps are complete, the round marker is advanced one space, and the First Player marker is passed clockwise.
Game End
The game ends when everyone has completed Round 7. At that point, everyone gains additional SP from the following:
- Any unsold spirits left in your warehouse. Count the SP for all the cards in the spirit stack, barrel, and recipe.
- Premium Market bottles in your collection.
- Distillery Upgrades that have an SP value on the cards.
- Distillery Goal cards that you have fulfilled.
- Remaining money, calculated at 1 SP/5 money, ignoring remainders.
After everyone advances those additional SP, whoever has the most Spirit Points wins, becoming the Master Distiller.
Solo Mode
Rather than playing against a “dummy” player, the Distilled solo mode has you trying to complete at least 5 randomly determined goals over the course of the 7 rounds of the game, as well as meet or exceed a target score based on the cards you draw for your game. Solo Goals can be of the following four categories:
- Distill goals. You must distill a certain type of spirit to achieve the goal.
- Sell goals. You must sell a certain type of spirit to achieve the goal. Note: spirits used to achieve a distill goal can’t be used to achieve a sell goal, and vice-versa.
- Collect goals. Obtain certain labels or distillery upgrades.
- Earn goals. Complete a certain achievement within a single round, such as completing the round with a certain amount of money.
For full rules on setting up and playing the Solo Mode, refer to the rulebook.
Distilled is GeekDad Approved!
Why You Should Play Distilled
If you take a look at the serious expressions on my friends’ faces in the picture above, it’s because there’s some real strategy involved in the playing of Distilled. Over the course of 7 rounds, you will grow your distillery, starting from very humble beginnings where you only have a few coins to your name, and all you can make is vodka or moonshine. By the end of the game, you’ll be distilling your family’s special recipe, and aging more complex spirits like brandy and baijiu.
The basic round structure for Distilled is easy to both teach and learn. There are a few rules that can sometimes be overlooked, like the one about being able to trade a single ingredient at the start of the distill phase. Thankfully the rulebook also has a “commonly forgotten rules” section to remind players of these smaller but important details. The real heart of the game lies in how you approach each round, so that you can maximize your scoring potential. That begins during setup, where you decide both on your Identity (i.e., the distillery owner you’ll be playing) and selecting which two secret endgame goals you’ll be pursuing.
Each of the Identities have different starting money and ingredients, as well as a unique special ability that they’ll have throughout the game, and a specific region that they’re tied to. For example, in one of my games I played as Joana Peri de Sousa, who is from the Americas region. She has an ability that gives her an extra money every time she sells a non-aged spirit. In the early game you’ll be selling pretty much exclusively non-aged spirits, so this allowed me to afford some premium ingredients sooner than my opponents.
But that’s only one piece of the puzzle. Out of the Distillery Goal cards that I’d drawn, I kept “Photosynthesis” and “Diverse Portfolio.” Photosynthesis would award me Spirit Points for the most labels that required plant-based sugars… of which Joana’s Signature Recipe was one. Diverse Portfolio would award me Spirit Points for having the greatest variety of labels. So, my overall strategy was to focus on unlocking and distilling plant-based recipes, as well as making a good variety of them.
Being able to purchase Distillery Upgrades allows you to build a mini-engine, which can contribute to your strategy both generally and specifically. Some of the Distillery Goal cards are tied directly to upgrades. And many upgrades can benefit you every turn. “Column Still” allowed me to play a little riskier with my ingredients, as during the Distill phase I only had to lose 1 ingredient, not two. So I never had to push my luck as much as some of the other players when distilling.
While the level of player interaction in Distilled isn’t high, you must still prioritize your purchases during the Market phase, knowing that one or more of your fellow players may be eyeing the same valuable upgrade or premium item. Additionally, at the end of each Market phase, the farthest-right Premium items will all leave the market and get loaded onto the truck. Which actually may be to your advantage, as one of the label bonuses allows you to acquire an item from the truck.
There are also a limited number of labels available per game. If the labels for a recipe run out, you can still distill that spirit, but you won’t have a label available to claim one of the bonuses. And those bonuses can be huge, as some allow you to acquire things like expensive Distillery Upgrades or Premium Items for free. While the Distill phase is done simultaneously, labels are drawn in turn order. So hopefully you’re first player on the turn that somehow everyone made soju.
I was very impressed with the quality of the components and the degree of polish on Distilled. There is great attention to detail, and all of the production and graphic design just reinforces the theme of the game. It’s almost baffling to know that this is a first-time game from designer Dave Beck, as the quality is so much higher than many games from more experienced designers and publishers. There’s even an educational component to Distilled, as the game teaches players about the actual process of distilling spirits.
It’s obvious that a lot of work and care has gone into the development of Distilled. The pacing feels spot on. Seven rounds is enough time to get a small engine going and age two or three spirits, but not so long that the game outstays its welcome. It’s nice that Distilled ships with a shorter 5-round introductory game, but I would argue that it’s only worth playing that when you’re demoing the game. The full 7 rounds seems the perfect length. I also appreciate that the final production version of the game added a fifth player, the addition of which doesn’t disrupt the flow of the game.
There’s also a lot of replayability to be found with the inclusion of multiple Tasting Flights. There is also a small expansion available, Distilled: Africa and Middle East Expansion, which adds in 100 new cards and tokens of recipes, spirits, identities, upgrades, and more. And again pointing to the care and thought that went into the design of the game, there is already room for all the components inside the Distilled game box.
While the level of strategy can get intense sometimes, there’s a nice built-in mechanism so that you never feel like you’ve wasted a round. Because everyone knows how to make both moonshine and vodka, you will always be able to distill something each round, even if it’s not the spirit that you’d intended to distill. And, while you will lose two cards from your spirit stack when you distill, you still get to put them into your pantry for a future round, rather than having to discard them. I found this really helped keep player frustration to a minimum when plans went awry, as they inevitably will from time to time in any strategy game.
Unsurprisingly, if everyone at the table is an adult, this is a great game to enjoy along with one of your favorite spirits. But that doesn’t mean that older kids won’t enjoy the game too. The theme and the mechanisms in Distilled blend into a harmonious whole, creating a delicious treat for the gaming palate that will be welcome at the table. There’s also a great sense of humor in Distilled, especially in the Flavor cards. When it comes time to sell an aged spirit, it’s well worth having each player read the always funny flavor cards out loud, as if they’re actually doing a tasting. You’ll never forget the first time you end up with a liquor that somehow has acquired the taste of an old rubber tire.
For more information or to make a purchase, visit the Paverson Games website.
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Disclosure: GeekDad received a copy of this game for review purposes.
