Board Game Distilled - Secrets of Drinks + Africa and the Middle East

A board game set that includes the base game and add-on.

A themed strategy game about the production of alcoholic beverages at modern distilleries.

The game is suitable for playing with family or with experienced players. And if you have no one to play with, pay attention to the excellent solo mode.

Masters of Alcohol Distillation

Having inherited a neglected distillery from a distant relative, you decide to continue the family business and return the enterprise to its former glory.

In this deep thematic game that recreates the real distillation process, you will collect recipes and buy high-quality ingredients, bottles and barrels on the market. At the same time, you will try to improve your distilleries by hiring experienced specialists and installing specialized equipment.

Each round you will create the world`s most famous alcoholic beverages. Once you have made your drinks, you can sell them immediately for profit, or keep them in storage for several rounds to improve their taste, prestige, and value. The player with the most victory points at the end of the game will be crowned Master Distiller.

Making Elite Spirits

After choosing one of 8 recipe lists, preparing markets for basic and high-quality resources, players choose distillers to play as, receive 3 secret objective cards, and take distillery and recipe tablets, starting items, specified ingredients and coins, signature recipes, and signature ingredients.

Gameplay

The game lasts 7 rounds. At the beginning of each round, players apply the corresponding effects to their distillers and distillery upgrade cards.

Each round is divided into 4 phases:

1. Market Phase (in turn order)

Taking turns in turn, clockwise, players buy 1 card or die until everyone passes. On their turn, a player can buy for coins:

• A recipe die. They place the die in the appropriate cell on the recipe board. The player can now distill drinks according to this recipe.
• An ingredient or item card in the basic resource market.
• An ingredient, item or distillery improvement card in the high-quality resource market.

A player can buy a maximum of 2 cards in the basic resource market in one round. The purchased item card is placed in the storage room, and the ingredient – in the pantry or directly into the fermentation vat. The purchased improvement is placed in one of three special places on the board.

Market Clearing. You must discard the last card in each row of the high-quality resource market and replenish the rows.

2. Distillation Phase (players move simultaneously)

At the beginning of the distillation phase, any player may exchange exactly 1 of their ingredient or item cards for a basic ingredient (not an item) with the same or lower market value.

Each player places the ingredients they want to use to distill one drink into the fermentation vat. To distill a drink, you must place at least 1 card each in the yeast, sugar, and water slots.

During distillation:

• Add 1 alcohol card for each card in the sugar slot.
• Shuffle all the cards and remove the top and bottom cards. Place these cards in the pantry, they can be used in subsequent rounds.
• Open the remaining cards in the deck. If these cards match one of the available recipes and you have the required barrel, take the label for this drink. Place the barrel card and the label on the drink deck.

If there is at least one sugar card in the drink deck, the player can distill vodka. If there are no sugar cards left in the stack, you can distill moonshine.

3. Selling Phase (in turn order)

Taking turns in turn, clockwise, players sell drinks one at a time. If a recipe contains a symbol indicating that the drink does not need to be aged, the player must sell it during this phase. If a recipe contains a symbol indicating that the drink must be aged for at least one round, the player cannot sell it during this phase.
Players add bottles from the back rooms for each drink they are going to sell. When selling a drink, the player scores points (indicated on the cards, on the recipe + flavor bonus) and receives coins (indicated on the cards and on the recipe). The player places the drink label in an empty slot on the distillery board, gaining the specified bonus. Using a bottle from the high-quality resource market, the player adds it to his own bottle collection.

4. Aging phase (in turn order)

The player shuffles the drink distilled in this round in his inventory. To each stack of drinks that are aged in the inventory, the player adds a random card from the aroma deck. Without looking at this card, he places it at the bottom of the stack.

End of round

Players score points if they fulfill the conditions of the drink rewards.
If the player did not sell drinks, he can conduct a tasting. He spends up to 4 points and takes the corresponding number of coins.
At the end of the 3rd round, each player discards 1 distillation goal card.

End of the game

After the 7th round, players score points for:

1. Drinks remaining in the stock (points on cards, on the recipe + 1 point for each flavor card).
2. Collection of bottles (for a certain number of bottles from one region and for bottles from 3 different regions).
3. Improvements to the distillery (which indicate the points).
4. Completed distillation goals.
5. Every 5 remaining coins – that’s 1 point.

The player with the most points wins. He receives the honorary title of Master Distiller.

Alcoholic Drinks of Africa and the Middle East

Add-on includes cards of new distillers, signature recipes and signature ingredients, high-quality ingredients and items, distillery upgrades, distillation flavors and objectives, solo play objectives, new recipe lists, and label tokens and drink rewards.

Use new ingredients, items and recipes and play as new distillers from Africa and the Middle East. In the expansion, you will create alcoholic beverages from a region not represented in the base game.

Distill grog and arak, akpetesh and bukha, buy new distillery improvements and resources from the market, age drinks for new flavors and earn new rewards with this great expansion.

The first expansion to the base game

• Thanks to the new region, you will be able to collect larger collections of bottles. 
• Double sugar. Ingredients with 2 sugar symbols appear in the game. Add 1 alcohol card for each symbol on such cards.
• Universal sugar. Glucose syrup – this is any type of sugar. You can use it instead of vegetable, fruit or malt sugar.