Distilled Board Game Review – First Impressions

Off the shelf, Distilled gives the impression that it is a spawling, complicated beast. That it requires enough table space that you’ll need to extend the gaming table in order to fit everything on if you commit to the full compliment of five players. Each player having their own distillery board plus the basic marketplace, the advanced marketplace with its set of three rows of cards and the main scoreboard all vying for much needed landscape. The box the game comes in is fully loaded with game trays for organisation and enough small chits and tokens to choke a small water buffalo. There is a beginner rulebook. There is the main rulebook. There are round reminder cards. This is a game that growls mild intimidation and you’d be forgiven if you thought you were heading into middle weight euro territory. It turns out, the growl was merely playful. Distilled is a little bit more of a pup than a wolf, but in a good way. Except for the whole whisky thing. 

Don’t make the same mistake that I did and assume that this is some kind of spiritual successor to Viticulture. There is alcohol involved, and of course, because there is alcohol involved, it’s probably better to take you time and have a glass of water before you try to dissect what is in front of you. Distilled is a production style Euro game, where workers are assumed to know their place already and you’re just providing them with the means of production. You play the owner of a distillery trying to create a range of neat little drinks that will ultimately earn you the right to take the claim as master distiller and win the game. Each of the characters brings their own particular bonus to the table, adding a small touch of asymmetry to proceedings and giving you advantages across certain stages as you play. 

Distilled is broken down into specific stages where you are gathering ingredients and improving your set up in the market and purchasing recipes, distilling your chosen recipes and then aging and selling the results. There’s nothing too different about the market, except for the addition of a basic market which is there to guarantee that you can always buy something that you can use even if they aren’t that exciting, they still get the job done. Distilled drives for a bit of difference when it comes to the distillation process in a game mechanic which is unique and frustratingly good. Recipes require some for of water, yeast and sugar to be created, and for every sugar you add to the pot, you’ll create an alcohol card that is added to your distillation pile. This pile is then shuffled and two cards are then removed and placed back in your pantry for future use. The kicker is that you don’t chose which two cards go back, and so you can end up in the situation where your finely crafted recipe plans are dashed on the rocks, and I don’t mean ice. It produces these moments where the players around you will either smile or rage as they realise they’ll need to make do with vodka or moonshine instead of their dream liquor.

You always want to distil, regardless of the potential outcome, as there is a limit on recipe production, and holding back can mean missing out on income that doesn’t require the sacrifice of victory points. Some spirits require aging, and aging introduces hidden flavours which are there to offer theme, some additional earning and in some cases, a touch of brevity to proceedings. No one wants whisky with a hint of sticking plaster, but it’s there to show that Dave Beck cares about having the theme actually be involved in their game, instead of a sticking plaster that simply sits over the top trying to pulling the mechanical wound closed. As the game continues you realise that Distilled isn’t actually that complicated at all, and that it boils down to some careful planning and knowing when to commit your key ingredients to the vat and knowing when to be spending you money on upgrades for the future. Upgrades shouldn’t be ignored for those who are wanting to earn some of the in game trophies and for those who aspire to achieve their own personal goal cards. Selling is simply a case of totalling up monetary values provided by your ingredients and any special barrels or bottles. There’s little need to be poring over cards to figure out Boolean maths and rewards, though a little concentration is required to make sure you aren’t ignoring bonuses grant by pirate bottles and super yeasts. 

Distilled follows the familiar communal woodpile, so you are always going to be guaranteed a slice of the base ingredients without having to worry about them running out, and you are only competing on the advanced materials, ingredients and distillery upgrades. Player interaction is never anything more than someone grabbing something from these piles quicker than you can, but such is the busy nature of each player’s board that you’ve little chance of proactively stepping in to stop someone from getting their vessel or ingredient of choice. Most of the time, this is a self defeating tactic, especially if you are wanting to bulk up on your own pantry of ingredients. It suffers from the same universal issue of any similar sized game, in that it’s never going to be obvious what your opponents are aiming for. The best tactic is to dive in and concentrate on what you are doing for your own little operation and do it as best as you can.

Distilled doesn’t offer the expected brain burner that its table presence suggests, and I’m quietly relieved by that. There is always some kind of progress due to your actions, be that in Spirit points or money and while you’re always at the mercy of the card removal during the distillation phase, once you get used to how the game plays out after a few turns you can look at mitigating that. It’s a steady point scoring platter that brings notes of building rewards and the occasional challenge, but doesn’t go down the road of being to caught up in pretention of its theme and tries to be self aware by peppering light humour in the choice of taste and bottles, which I appreciate. There’s an offering of additional ingredients and recipes through additional expansions which I feel need an additional section to itself and at this point don’t feel played enough to be commented on. But commented on they shall be in the future, and this written piece will be updated at that point. 

So you mean to say you have Whisky in your game and you decide to not involve Scotland. (Yes, spelling, Schmelling) Absolutely negligence. Nothing more to say… Well, I do have more to say but they involve adult themes and scenes which some viewers may find disturbing.