Distilled: Cocktails Preview | Pumped Up Kickstarter

0:02 Oh, hi there. I didn't see you. I was too busy having fun. Shaken or stirred? Just kidding. I'm already shaking it. Could you care for a cocktail? Too bad. There's only dice in here.

0:32 Hello everyone. Welcome back to Foster the Mele, a channel all about board games and board gamey things. I am back again today with another pumped up Kickstarter. And today's pumped up Kickstarter preview is going to be on Distilled Cocktails, which is the newest expansion for Distilled. This this one this game right here, Distilled and Distilled Cocktails, is from Pverson Games, who very kindly sponsored today's video. Now, as per usual with my preview videos, this is not an official how to play, but the purpose is to serve as kind of a general overview to help you figure out whether or not the Distilled Cocktails expansion is a good fit for you. Now, a few things I want to note before we get started.

1:20 Number one, this is a prototype. Some of the components you are about to see have been 3D printed which means that will be changing. Some of the images may be changing the rules. There's you you know the drill with a prototype. I don't need to tell you you guys know. The other thing to note is that this is an expansion which means you do need the base game in order to play. And I'm going to have all the links, everything that you need to know in the description below in case you're like, "Yeah, I got to have it." All the links are going to be in the description for you. Now, for today's video, I think I'm going to do just a brief, very quick overview of the base game of Distilled, just in case you're not familiar, and then we'll dive in to the expansion. So, without further ado, I say we get started. Let's have a drink together, shall we?

2:14 some drinking of knowledge. All righty, let's start. So, the first thing that we are going to start with, like I mentioned, is a very brief overview of Distilled. Now, I have talked about Distilled a billion times. It is one of my favorite games of all time. If you've watched our top 50 games, you know that we've covered it a bunch. I have a solo playthrough on it. I'll link as much as we have in the description below in case you are curious. I also want to mention that the distilled base game is on board game arena. So, if you would like to try it out and you want to play with me, please feel free to send me an invite because my two other games just finished and so I need to start I need to start more. That's what I'm trying to say. So, let's take a look at the board. You're like, whoa, that's a lot of stuff.

3:01 Please note, much of this is part of the cocktails expansion. So, we're only going to be focusing on the base game for just one second. In Distilled, you are playing over seven rounds, which is signified by a round tracker. During each round, what you're going to be doing is you're going to be collecting different ingredients, maybe getting some distillery upgrades, some items, different things like that with the whole purpose of distilling alcohol, different types of alcohol. So, what you're going to be doing is you are going to be spending your money at the market. We love the market. You have some fancier ingredients. you have some fancier items and distillery upgrades which can help you do things a little bit better. And then at the top we have our basic ingredients. Now it's very important to note that in order to create an alcohol you need at least one yeast, one water, and one sugar. There's three different types of sugars in this game. We have grain sugar, we have plant sugars, and we have fruit sugars. All of those are going to come into play to determine which alcohol you're actually going to make. So, every game you're going to have one of these cards, and there's a bunch of different ones, and they all have different types of alcohol. These are your recipe cards, and on the recipe cards, it's going to show you what an alcohol needs to be distilled in order to create that type of alcohol. As an example, for soju, you need at least two grain sugars and uh it

4:31 doesn't need to be aged, which is another part of this because some alcohols you don't need to age. You just mix them up, boom, they're done. However, some of them need to be aged, which means you need a wooden barrel or a clay barrel to do it. How the game is going to work, you're going to do your market phase. You're going to get all of your ingredients, all of that good stuff. Then you're going to put those ingredients that you want to distill into your washback. For every sugar, you will add an alcohol into your pile. Once you have your pile completed, you're going to shuffle it up and you're going to take two cards off of the top that are not going to be included in the alcohol, which is very thematic to making alcohol. You got to skim off the top, okay? Because I think it's poison or something. I'm not 100% sure, but it is thematically accurate what you're doing. Then you're going to look and see what you have left. You are then going to put what you have left into a barrel, either a metal type barrel, clay or wooden barrel, depending on the type of alcohol. If it is in a metal style barrel, you can sell it right away. And you're going to sell it for however much money you know you're making off of your bottles, the ingredients you use, the barrels, all of that stuff. And then you're going to get some corresponding victory points. If it's in a wooden or clay barrel, it will need to be aged at least one round before you can sell it off. But the longer that you leave things in your warehouse, the more points that you will get, you're also going to be adding different flavor cards to it, which could also give you

6:01 more money points, all of these things. That's essentially what you're doing. There's obviously a lot more going on in this game, but to kind of like skim it down a little, you are collecting ingredients to make different types of alcohol to sell to make money in order to buy more stuff to make more alcohol to score victory points. And whoever has the most victory points is going to win. There are going to be distillery goals that you're trying to achieve. There are going to be uh special awards that you're trying to do. We also all have our own character that has their own special ingredient and they're going to have their own type of alcohol that you're trying to make. They have their own starting resources and special ability. But that's distilled the base game in the smallest nutshell that I could possibly give you. So, let's now move on to the cocktails expansion because that's why we're all here. The cocktails expansion takes the world of distilled beyond distilling spirits and into the art of Nixology, global prestige, and collector recognition.

7:05 While the base game focuses on crafting spirits through ingredients, recipes, and aging, this expansion adds a new layer of service and reputation building. The goal is still the same. Achieve the most spirit points, but how you get there now includes cocktails, renowned collectors, and expanded distillery operations. But what does that mean? I'm so glad you asked. So, if you are familiar with distilled, some of this stuff is going to be like, "Oh, that's I recognize this thing. It's giving you a little bit more, but there are lots of new things." Okay, I just want to let you know. Let's talk about the new gameplay systems. Starting with the second washback, which is right down here. Tada! It removes. So, this is the base. This is the expansion. This is a second washback which starts out locked.

7:58 So throughout the game, you can unlock a second distillation vessel to produce multiple spirits in the same round. So typically in base distilled, you can only distill one spirit per round. If you have this unlocked, you will be able to distill a second alcohol, which is very exciting. So, every player is going to get a distillery expansion board and a label bonus board, which we have right up here. It's kind of tucked right up at the top. Um, and this is going to be for storing sold labels and claiming bonuses. We also have the second washback unlock track, which is right here. As you can see, every player is going to have their key. As you unlock the second washback, you're going to be moving your key along this track. For this, you are going to have to pay an escalating cost every time that you want to unlock that second washback. So, once you unlock it, it doesn't stay unlocked for the entire game. You're going to have to continually choose whether or not you feel it's worth it to unlock it in order to distill more spirits. For the second washback, it's also important to know that your other spirit must still include yeast, water, and a sugar source separately. So that's for each washback. If both of your washbacks produce the same spirit, you're going to combine them into one stack, one barrel, one label, combined sale. However, if

9:28 you are able to create two different types of spirits, then everything is going to be separate. So you're going to need a separate barrel. You're going to need a separate bottle. They're going to be aged separately. So, just know if it's the same together. Together. If it's different, separate different. After use, the washback will lock again. And then you have to pay to unlock it in the future rounds. Like I mentioned, that is why these keys are going to be used on this board. So, this shows, hey, okay, I've paid the two. The next time I want to do it, I have to pay the four, 7, 10, and 14. This system rewards resource management. So, can you support two parallel distillations and market timing? So, you have to think, is it worth making multiple spirits now or should I save some of my ingredients for later? I don't know about you, but I oftent times in when I'm playing base distilled, I'm just going to throw most of my stuff in and hope for the best.

10:28 Whereas now with this expansion, you might be like, I'm gonna hold back a couple of these grain sugars because I want to collect more so that I could do one big distilled and have enough money in order to unlock my second wash back. So, it adds like another layer to that strategy piece. Then we have cocktails and mixers. There is, as you can see, a new cocktail market board placed alongside the premium market, which we have right above it here. We also have cocktail order cards, which are all of these. And look at this fun one. Very tropical. I don't know what it's called, but it's very tropical. So, we're going to have all of these cards. There's a whole extra stack. Each of these is going to have different requirements. The first being a spirit type. So, you'll see in this little box here, it's going to tell you the type of spirit that you're going to need. As an example, for this one, it was going to require a spirit that uses a uh plantbased sugar. So, as an example, you could use Aquavate for it. Aquaveet. I don't know if I'm pronouncing it right, but you could do that. It's also going to require different mixers. So, you'll see here these symbols which match these tokens. This is new as well. These are your mixers. So there's lures, there's fizz, there's garnishes, there's flavorings, there's juice, and of course, we have an umbrella. And umbrellas are wild. And I don't know about you, but I believe that because I have seen an umbrella in the wind, and

11:59 they are they are wild. Untameable. Each of these is also going to have a specific glass type. So, we also have these new tokens, which are different. Did I just pull all the same? Nope. But they're all different types of glasses which you can see kind of up in the top corner here as well. There's martini and oldfashioned Collins hurricane or tiki as wild. So tikis are wild. I just had two umbrellas and tikis. Very wild. You'll love to see it. So in order to grab one of the cocktail order cards, you are going to have to pay its cost which is listed at the bottom. So, this one is $1, whereas this one is $4.

12:44 When you purchase this after paying the cost, you're going to put it in one of your two distillery bar spaces, which are located on that expansion washback board. So, you're going to place it in one of these spaces. Then, you can obtain mixers. So, buying a cocktail order allows you to also gain mixers equal to its cost. So, if I had bought this drink, which I believe looks like an oldfashioned, I don't actually know, but I think that's what it is. I paid one. That means that I could purchase one mixer. These are the mixers that we currently have available to us. Now, you can also purchase mixers directly by paying $2 for up to three mixers. Okay? So, if I had purchased this one for a dollar, maybe I'm going to just look and see what's going on here. Maybe I want to take one of these juices. I might want to do that. Then what you're going to do is look at the mixer board and if there are three or fewer left on this board here, you're going to take a look at the dice that have been rolled previously and you are going to refill with the dice faces shown. Then you're going to take those dice and you're going to reoll them. And I just

14:13 Wasn't that fun? So, you can always kind of predict and see what types of ingredients for the mixers are going to be coming up next. And I should also mention since we're talking about the mixers now, when you take one from here, only one cocktail umbrella can be taken per turn. So, if there were two out and you had spent two to take two, you couldn't take both of those umbrellas. That's just greedy. You can't do that. You can only take one. Also, only two cocktails can be active at your bar at once. There's only two spaces, so feels obvious, but just so you know, if you want to take another one, you would have to get rid of one of the two that are in your bar. So, let's continue on with the cocktails discussion because the cocktails phase is going to be a new round, a new step when playing the game. So after the aging phase, which is one of the standard phases in regular distilled, players now enter the cocktails phase, on your turn, you may serve one cocktail order from your bar. If you have an available spirit label in the label bonus area, not your warehouse. So if I were still aging something as an example, then I wouldn't be able to take that label. So, let me just give uh an example here.

15:36 Here we have this drink and what it requires is a spirit label that has fruit sugars that was aged. We happen to have a brandy here that has all of those things. You love to see it. All right. So, you're going to need an avail available spirit label that is in your bonus area. You're also going to need to have the required mixers. So, you'll notice at the bottom there's two options. Let me just get some stuff up in here like this. If that is my pile, we have one level here and we have a second level here. Obviously, if you have more of the mixers, it's going to be better, but you need the required mixers when you serve a cocktail. So, right now, I have enough to do this bottom row here. So, let's just discard everything here.

16:31 for the bottom row. Then you're going to gain the renown shown on the order card. Renown is something else that's new. So you're going to gain renown shown on the order card. For the one that I just did, it would be three. Then what you're going to do is you're going to place a cocktail glass token on the label used. And that spirit can't be used again for another cocktail. So I wouldn't be able to use this brandy again. But this one needs uh one of the little glasses. So, we put that right there to signify that this spirit has been used. Then, we're going to discard the cocktail order card permanently. Gone forever. That drink has been drunk. It's gone. This portion of the game is adding a new rhythm. Spirits are not only about aging and selling. They can now be redirected into cocktails for immediate renown and long-term set collection. And I know what you're thinking, Jamie. You keep saying renown, but you haven't explained what that means. Well, how about I do that right now? More new components. We have the world map board, which is going to sit somewhere in the center of your table.

17:46 Each player has a renown board that tracks their available tokens. This is the renown board right here. Okay. And I have some tokens already set out just so we can like do some examples, but that is this board here. Whoa. We're not going to do that. You are going to be gaining renown mostly through cocktails which let you place tokens out on the world map. The first token must be in your distiller's home region. And if you'll remember, your distiller's home region is listed at the top of their card. Okay. So for for my distiller, we have Vivana Santgo from Cuba. So she's going to be down here over here in the Americas. So we would have started in that area. Additional tokens must then be connected to your existing network. So you can see the tokens that I've currently put out. They are all somehow connected. So if you see one that's over here and you're like, "How in the heck did you get over there?"

18:47 Well, that would be cheating. So, we're not going to do that. We're going to put that back. When you look at the map, you'll notice that there's icons in these spaces. These are bonuses, which could be anything from like free ingredients. We have some victory points, we have money, we have cocktail cards, etc. if you place on top of another player, which you can do. So, I for space's sake, just so everybody knows, I have set up for a three-player game, but I only have so much space that the camera can see. But let's pretend this was another token and this was a different color. I could place that on top, but I'm not going to get whatever the bonus is on the bottom. Also, I wouldn't have taken from that side. You have to take from this way. What does all of this mean? This is all going to be going towards endgame scoring rewards. So being present in all four regions, the four different colors is going to give you some kind of reward.

19:46 Having six or more renown in a single region will give you a reward. This adds a territory control element layered in on top of distilling. So we have a bit of an area control element that's going on up here as well. Now we I know what you're thinking. Who are these people? That's good. You should be thinking, who are these people? Where did they come from? These, my friends, are the collectors. Collector cards are going to represent elite buyers with very specific demands. Each collector wants two spirits of particular tiers or values. So, as an example, with this beautiful lady right here, they are looking for a bronze tier and silver tier. We got basketball player here looking for bronze and silver, bronze and silver, bronze and gold, silver and a signature recipe. They're also looking for a certain level of victory points that goes along with that type of spirit, which of course can come from the spirit itself. It can come from the type of bottles that you use. It can come from the barrels. It can come from the ingredients. It can come from a variety of different things. So, what you can do as you are distilling a spirit is you can choose to sell to a collector. That is going to give you additional money. So, you'll see at the top of the cards, they have a specific additional type of money that they're going to give you. And the awards collector label bonus tiles, which are

21:18 these all here. These are going to provide variable endgame scoring. So, as an example, this one here is going to give you an additional one victory point for every spirit that you have made that has a fruit sugar in it. Collectors do not want your moonshine or your vodka. These are fancy people. They want high tier spirits and recipes that are more valuable. So, don't bring your moonshine to this drag race. Don't you do it. You're going to make her very mad. She doesn't want it. She wants this brandy probably. So, the collectors are essentially introducing a new puzzle of timing. Is it better to sell broadly or focus on meeting a collector's demand for a greater long-term points? Um, so a few more things to note before we kind of get into this next thing. I do want to mention there are new cards that are going to get shuffled into your premium items, your ingredients, your distillery upgrades. The game's also going to come with additional basic ingredients. uh as well as alcohol so that you've got more capacity. All of the cards that you see out here with the exception of this one I think are all from the expansion. So this dodo bottle as an example that's part of the cocktails expansion. We got a private jet.

22:39 It's pretty cool. And some new types of ingredients, new sugars. So if you're like, "Whoa, those all look different." It's because they are. Except for potatoes. I just had to put potatoes out because they're a staple in everybody's life. What you may notice on all of the cards that are currently out is that there's a new icon and that is this little forklift icon. So, many of the new cards, and not all of them, it just happens to be the ones that I put out all have them, but many of the new cards on the premium ingredients uh items and upgrades and cocktails are going to have a forklift icon. During the market phase, when cards are discarded, a forklift card is going to force one extra card to be discarded. It's going to help us filter through the cards in the decks even more than before. If the new card also has a forklift, the chain is just going to continue. And this just ensures, like I said, markets are turning enough to prevent clogging, especially in lower player games. So, if you're like, "What the heck does a forklift do?" That's what it does. It forklifts stuff right out of there. Get on out. I also want to mention before we get into endgame scoring stuff, there are new characters. This is one of the examples with Vivian Santgo with of course their ingredients and their personal alcohol recipes or spirit recipes. There are new distillery gold cards. There are new special rewards.

24:05 There's basically more of everything. Basically more of everything. Now, I'm going to talk about how endgame scoring is different in the expansion. But before we do that, I didn't really explain this portion. So, here we have kind of like a label bonus expansion to our board. And how this works is if you have distilled a spirit, you can choose to place it up in one of these areas. When you do, you're going to get whatever you cover. So, there's alcohol, uh, an umbrella, money, or a renown. When you do that, you'll take the bonus. Then, what you're going to do is you're going to look at the world map and see if we can claim one of these bonus tiles here. How that's going to work is you're going to see if you have renown in the two areas that it's asking you to. So, as an example, with what I would have out right now, it's saying I need something from the Americas and something from the Asian region, which I don't have, but I do have something from the Americas and something from Europe.

25:15 So, I could take this and then you would add it right here to your board. Let's talk about how endgame scoring is expanded in this expansion, shall we? In addition to your base game scoring, players are now also going to check their collector label bonus tiles, which are these ones here. So, if you remember, this one is one point per spirit that has fruit sugar in it. So, you're going to be looking at that. There's variable points for the icons across all of your collected labels. The next thing that you're going to add into your end-game scoring is cocktail glass collection. So, you'll remember we have all these different cocktail glasses. You're going to see how many unique glasses you have collected. So, in this situation, I have four. And remember, the tiki is wild. So, I have four. Then, you're going to multiply that by your renown stacks that you have uncovered by placing them out on the world map. So, you'll always get one. So, right now, I have four times two because I have two uncovered. If I had this one, it would be four * 3. any additional glasses that you have beyond the four won't count.

26:25 So, when you're looking at the cocktails and doing orders, you are trying to preferably use different types of glasses. Then, we also have our renown bonuses. So, you're going to get three victory points for having presence in all four regions, three victory points for each region with six or more renown. You're also going to score points for your leftover mixers. Each leftover mixer will count as one coin during final money to victory point conversion. This means a player can win not just by distilling efficiently, but also by specializing in cocktails, renown or collector focused strategies. Basically, this expansion is just giving you so many more avenues to try new strategies to score points. In base distilled, you are really focused on distilling a variety of different spirits or maybe distilling the same one over and over again based on your goals.

27:25 And remember, this also has different and new goals that are going to be related to the expansion essentially. So now you can still do that, but you can also be like, "Well, I'm just going to make whatever I need to sell to these fancy people, or I'm just going to try to get as much renown as I can by making different cocktails and spreading oat across the map." So many different options, so many different opportunities to score points. So, how you can use this expansion because it is large. We've already talked about that and you we've just gone over so many things. So you're like, "Whoa, that's a lot." It's a lot. The rule book does recommend that you can layer content gradually. So with your first game with cocktails, maybe only add the second washback. Then your second, you can introduce the cocktails and the mixers. You don't have to dump everything in at once. You can ease yourself into it. I of course just dumped everything in at once because why not? So you could do that too, whatever you like. So, that is my general overview of the Cocktails expansion.

28:34 Like I said, I didn't go into full detail about everything, but as always, I encourage you to please watch other content, read content, check out the Kickstarter page, read as much as you can so that you have a really good understanding of what's going on here. Distilled Cocktails is a premium expansion that mixes fresh gameplay with collector friendly ways to store and show off your entire Distilled collection. There is a thank you in every pledge. Every single backer at any tier is going to receive a special 20 card promo pack at no extra cost. These cards are going to add extra gameplay and splash of community flavor to your table. There's no stretch goals. It's all momentum. So, they're skipping traditional stretch goals to keep production clean and delivery focused.

29:20 Instead, they're going to run fun live campaign activities that'll actually shape what you get, like community voting on which cards make it into the promo pack. So, expect interactive updates and reasons to check back in throughout the campaign. There are, of course, as always, going to be a variety of different pledge tiers, starting with Just Cocktails. So, just Cocktails tier is going to be best for returning players who only want the expansion. This is going to include the distilled cocktails expansion and will mirror the preview experience you've seen today minus the dice shaker. This is an upgrade, okay? And I'm not trying to sell you anything, but it I have had a lot of fun shaking dice in this thing. I'm just just saying this is ideal if you already own the base game and you want to get right into mixing. Then we have the collector's box edition, which is best for fans who love a unified storage and premium shelf presence. This will include the Distills Cocktails expansion packed inside a big collector's box designed to hold everything distilled in one elegant home. So, for those of you that don't know, we have Distilled. There are also other expansions. There's multiple expansions already. And now we have the cocktails expansion. So, you can get the big box, fit everything inside. This is built to organize your collection for faster setup, play, and tear down.

30:44 Finally, we have the all-in edition, and this is best for completionists who want the most deluxe experience, which includes everything from the collector's box edition. It's also going to add a handful of extra upgraded bits for more tactile table presence upgrades. This is the official like all in allin. It is perfect if you want your copy to look and feel topshelf right out of the box. And then of course we have the new to distilled bundle which is best for new players who want it all in one click. This includes everything from the collector's box plus the original distilled base game. This is the easiest way to start your collection fully organized and ready to pour. Ready to pour. All tiers, like I said before, are going to include that 20 card promo pack. So back during the campaign to make sure that you get it.

31:36 So whether you're new to distilled or you're already as invested as somebody like me, the four tiers are going to make it simple to pick the right fit for you. So take a look through them, have a think to see what what's going to work best for you. So my friends, if Distilled Cocktails sounds like it's going to be a good fit for you and in your collection, then make sure to follow along the campaign. Tell your game group, get ready to help shape the promo pack. I love having influence on things. It's super fun. Whether you're expanding a favorite or discovering it for the first time, backing during the campaign guarantees you those exclusive 20 card promo packs. All right, so don't forget September 16th to October 2nd. Let us raise our glass. This is not a glass, but let us raise our glass to distilled cocktails. It's on the house and on your table soon hopefully. But that, my friends, is everything that I have for you today. Hey, if you have any questions, please feel free to leave them in the comments below. Like I mentioned, if you would like to play Distilled Base Game with me on Board Game Marina, please feel free to send me an invite. And if you don't have my BGA information, join our Discord and join our group, uh, BGA group, because we're playing games in there literally all the time. And I am quite literally always in at least one to two games of Distilled, if not more, which can yes get very confusing because I I was just in one where I was playing

33:07 the same character in both of the games and I was lost because I'm like, how am I in round four of this one, round seven of this one? It was very confusing, but I do it anyways because I love the game. So, if you'd like to play, please feel free to join our Discord and let's play a game. If you're interested in buying board games, you should first start by checking out your friendly local gaming store. And for us, that's the Boardroom Game Cafe. And if you like what you see, please subscribe. I hope to see you again soon. And now I say goodbye. Goodbye. Happy distilling.

33:48 That was too much fun. Okay. Oh, I got to pack this up. Yesesh. Yesesh. A little bit extra. Let's take a look at the drinks. That one looks like a coffee. Can you tell I don't drink? That looks like a tequila sunrise or a Alabama slamma. That one's fun. That one's fun. That looks like a Shirley Temple. That one looks like it would be very alcoholy. All of these ones do. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's a mule, I think. Ooh. Drink snacks. Very important to me.