Jef Aldrich and Jon Taylor have another Simon & Schuster published goodie in the Dungeonmiester series.
The Deck of Many Drinks is a D&D themed “cocktail generator”. Sadly, it doesn’t magically make drinks for you. Pick a card and cross-reference it with a helpful ingredient guide, and you can set about making a fantasy cocktail.
The first thing I noticed about The Deck of Many Drinks was the size. These drinks come on cards larger than your standard playing cards or Magic: The Gathering. They’re about twice the size. That’s handy for the illustration and the theme text. It also makes the box easy to find in your bag but it’s not really a deck you can pop in your pocket.
The second thing I noticed was the quality of the card stock. I was worried that I’d get the cards wet and they’d dissolve into goo. I’ve not got them wet yet, but these cards’ll be around drinks, so it will happen. When it does, though, I think the cards will survive as these are printed on heavy stock.
5e compatible cocktails
No fooling, but the drinks in this deck are 5e-compatible. Each drink has a related effect, which might give your D&D character extra strength or a similar bonus.
As much as I like the idea of a D&D drinks generator, I’m now more cautious about having too many drinks at the gaming table. As it happens, the The Deck of Many Drinks might be an ally here because cocktails, which these cards mainly are, take a while to make and tend to be sipped slowly. That contrasts with cracking open another can of beer and chugging it down.
The cocktail quest
I drink a lot less than I used to, and to keep it that way, given my dreadful willpower, I don’t keep much at home. If it was there, it would be eaten or drunk.
As a result, I appreciate my drinks more when I do allow myself to have one.
To thoroughly test The Deck of Many Drinks, I took my copy to One Canon in Edinburgh.
One Canon is one of my favourite pubs, the closest to work that I care to mention and home to the occasional D&D game. There’s a snug around the back that’s perfect for small games. The pub also specialises in pizza; you can even get food from there via Deliveroo. It is named after an iconic D&D class – the cleric (or monk depending on how you view the class).
It wasn’t an ambush, as I had checked beforehand that it would be okay to rock up on a mid-week day and terrorise the owner with D&D-themed drinks.
Some of the drinks in the deck ask for stuff that I suspected not even a well-stocked pub would have — like activated charcoal or giant gummy worms — but there’s also a supermarket around the corner.
In our case, Martin guided us to the Giant Bee, suggested a tweak to improve it, sold me on the modification, and went off. It was fun!
Well, it was fun for me! Hopefully, I didn’t confuse my local pub owner too much. One Canon has a display of Micro Machines from Martin’s personal collection on the wall so I suspect D&D-themed cocktails are well within his comfort zone.
And the Giant Bee was delicious.
Overall
I like having The Deck of Many Drinks, and I like having them as a gift even more. The cards might not be something you need but appreciate someone making the effort for you.
I absolutely think cocktails are improved by one whole experience level with the addition of a D&D theme.
My main grumble is that I’d put the ingredients, in English, on the card and put the in-game special effects in the guidebook. That guidebook would be in alphabetic order.
As noted, you’ll need a robust selection of drinks and extras to make most of these drinks. However, using the The Deck of Many Drinks well in advance of when the drinks are needed, with time to go on a quest to the shops, solves that problem.
Quick Links
- You can get the deck from Amazon and anywhere but Amazon.
Geek Native was provided a free copy to review..
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