Distilled: Africa & Middle East / Cask Strength

With its evocative theme and novel distillation mechanic, Distilled has retained its popularity as a thematically strong medium-weight eurogame. Satisfying as the core game is, players always seem to be thirsty for more...

Africa & Middle East is an expansion designed by Dave Beck. It introduces new distillers with their own new signature recipes, and to match the expansion's new regions there are new labels for the spirits you're distilling. There are more equipment and specialist cards, as well as new bottles and amphora. The new additions add variety and still more flavour to the base game but they don't materially change the rules or gameplay.

By contrast, Richard Woods' Cask Strength does introduce a significant tweak to the base game of Distilled. It's a smaller expansion than Africa & Middle East - just a modest tuck box adding only a small number of new ingredient and other cards - but it provides for market variations each round that vary the prices of ingredients in the market and the most lucrative regions. Players can always see the card that will be in operation for the next round so that can inform your strategy. We've found that incorporating the Cask Strength expansion, and particularly its dynamic market, tends to focus players' actions.

We've also been playing the more substantial Cocktails expansion for Distilled. Watch this space for our upcoming review...

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