Distilled Review

boardgamequest.com:

We review Distilled, a set collection and hand management board game published by Paverson Games. Distilled is a highly thematic strategy card game about crafting spirits in a distillery.

In Distilled, you and your opponents are competing to earn the title of Master Distiller by obtaining ingredients, items, recipes, barrels, bottles, and distillery upgrades to craft and sell the best spirits to earn the most Spirit Points (SP).

Distilled is published by Paverson Games, and designed by Dave Beck. The game plays from 1-5 players and takes about 30 minutes per player.

Distilled is played in four phases over seven rounds (but no ice).  Each player is dealt two distiller character cards and you select the character with the unique power that you prefer. Each character also has a signature recipe and ingredient. Players draw three secret distillery goals, but in a fun twist, you discard one of these goals after round three.

1. Market phase: There is a basic market and a premium market. You take turns purchasing items from the two markets. The basic market consists of yeast, water, basic grain, plant, and fruit sugar cards, as well as basic clay and wood barrel cards. Players may only purchase two cards from the basic market each round. The premium market has distillery upgrade cards (equipment and specialists), item cards (bottles, wood/metal/clay barrels), and premium ingredient cards, which cost more, but earn you more money and Spirit Points than basic ingredients.

2. Distill Phase: At the start of each game, a Recipe Tasting Flight is selected and lists which spirits can be distilled, with all flights allowing players to make moonshine and vodka. The tasting flight’s seven spirits require you to purchase their recipe prior to attempting to distill them. These spirits, along with each character’s signature spirit, have a certain number and type of sugar cards required to distill them.

Players each distill a spirit by using water, yeast, and sugar cards. You add one