If you are trying to escape the real world, role-playing games are an ideal refuge. You can have grand adventures, be the hero and escape the delusion of the day. Escape the grind. Games in general are an ideal refuge. Imagine: you go on an adventure with your friends. The dungeon master flips open his DM screen and the table and the theater of the mind slowly transform into a fantasy world. And then Rick pulls out a can of soda and tears open a bag of nacho cheese flavored chips. What a hero! Suddenly you return to the real world full of advertising and commerce. To truly immerse themselves in that self-made world, players must also immerse themselves within the confines of fantasy in terms of food. The Adventurers Guide to Alchemy gives players plenty of recipes for the tastiest and imaginative concoctions inspired by classic role-playing games and fantasy tropes.
At Dice Daniel, we do love/love a drink. In the blog series Dice & Drinks, we give our website readers the ultimate drink and board game pairings. For example, beers and board games that go hand in hand. In the previous blog we mentioned why pairings are becoming less regular, but we still love a drink. These days especially alchohol-free drinks. In fact, Daniel has gone teetotal and the other editors and players have also become a bit older and less binge drinky. Fortunately, Daniel is no less boring, according to the editors. Fortunately, the Adventurers Guide to Alchemy offers something for everyone to drink. Indeed, the book contains many interesting cocktails as well as mocktails.
A pitfall for recipe books with a theme is that the theme is an afterthought: existing dishes are given funny names, but actual integration with the theme is hard to find. On the other hand, in some recipe books the dishes are actually the aftertough, the writers are focusing too much on the theme but not enough on the edibility (or drinkability). How about the book that we have in front of us now? The book contains plenty of recipes for potions and other brews inspired by Dungeons & Dragons, as well as other fantasy tropes and just a lot of creativity. The Adventurers Guide to Alchemy does not fall into any of these pitfalls. The recipes are creative, unique and very thematic, but they are all logical and balanced on flavor. Not just weird fantasy concoctions, but unique potions with a tasty twist. Some recipes seem a bit daring at first due to bold combinations of ingredients, but once you try the recipe, you’re won over by it.
The recipes contain fun descriptions and beautiful atmospheric photos, making the fantasy inspirations obvious, and the recipe instructions are clear and easy to follow. Most of the ingredients were readily available in the Netherlands, but may not be available everywhere. To my feeling, most of the ingredients should be pretty available everywhere, but you might have slight variations in color or taste. The drinks are all easy to prepare, but all look fantastic, so they wouldn’t look out of place in many a fantasy tavern. With a matching dish, you’ll be all set for your new adventure.
For our dear readers, we tested a number of recipes. Below you will find our experience of three of the recipes.
Embrace the shade with the Shadowstep Cooler, the ideal drink for the cold-blooded assassins among us. The coffee keeps our rogue awake and the combination of coffee along with the blackberry juice (or a fitting alternative) as well tonic makes for a fresh, slightly tart, bitter and extremely unique drink.
The gods be praised! The clerics among us also can’t stop having fun with Divine Clarity. Again, a drink with unique twists. The aloe vera provides texture and the coconut water provides a surprising twist to the taste. Again deliciously refreshing, thanks in part to the sour lemonade.
Do you have fond memories of the one time a gelatinous cube absorbed you, stole your equipment and your friends had to rescue you from the peaceful cube of gel? The Gelatinous Slush is a delicious thick and ice cold slushy (kind of like hushpuppy for some of us). A nice thick cold drink with again aloe vera (we had the ingredients anyway) and deliciously sour through the sorbet. A perfect drink for summer adventurers.
The creators put a lot of thought and energy into the Adventurers Guide to Alchemy. We thoroughly enjoyed trying and photographing the various recipes and will be pulling out the booklet more often in the future before going on an adventure.
The Adventurer’s Guid to Alchemy is the perfect gastronomic drinks companion to all your fantasy adventures to escape the real world! Check it out on Kickstarter right now.
