I don’t even know where to start with this one so I guess it will be best to start at the beginning.

Around eight months ago, one of my friends and colleagues gave me a call to say that he and his partner were heading to America for a two week holiday along with his US based sister. As part of this trip he was planning on spending the first few days in Louisville visiting distilleries and shopping for Bourbon and he asked if I’d like to come along. Of course I said yes, we’d been talking about a bourbon trip for some time. A little later he then invited another friend and colleague who is also a bourbon lover (the same guy that I went to Toronto to visit last year), and so there will be six of us in total.

This was all organised back in the days before BA devastated the BA executive club and therefore I saw an opportunity at the time to both have a few days of fun and do a tier point run around the outside of the visit, and this is why the routing is, well, let’s just call it suboptimal.

I think it’s prudent at this point to introduce the cast of this adventure to save me having to say things like ‘colleague number one’ or ‘partner of colleague number two’!

• Myself, hopefully you know me by now, but if its your first time reading one of my trip reports, welcome to the mad house
• Steve, based in the UK, a real larger than life character, absolutely guaranteed to be clowning in a photo at some point
• Rachel, Steves partner, another character, she needs to be to keep up with Steve!
• Dawn, Steves sister, whom I have yet to meet.
• Sheldon, from Toronto, who will be driving down to Louisville. Sheldon could be my brother from another mother, theres a remarkable resemblance, although I have a far smarter goatee
• ‘Red’, Sheldons partner, an absolute diamond, she has to be to put up with Sheldon

The itinerary looks like this:

Tuesday - Evening NCL-LHR (J) and overnight
Wednesday - LHR-DUB-LHR-JFK (J/F) and overnight, Steve and Rachel leave LHR a couple of hours before me but fly direct to CVG via JFK
Thursday - JFK-PHX-RNO-PHX-CVG (F/J/Y) and overnight
Friday - Travel from Cincinnati to Louisville by car (Steve will have a rental car)
Saturday - Bourbon Tour, Sheldon and Red arrive in Louisville
Sunday - Bourbon Tour
Monday - CVG-JFK-LHR (F/J)
Tuesday - LHR - NCL (J)

Originally the end of the itinerary looked like this, but once more I’ve had to shuffle plans to accommodate work.

Tuesday - LHR - PMI (J) and overnight
Wednesday - PMI-LHR-NCL

Instead, Wednesday sees me back on a train from Newcastle to Birmingham!

11 Flights, 4 hotels, 4 PNRs, 5 days in the air and 3 days actually on the ground! There is the added benefit that this trip gives enough nTP to secure silver status in ‘26-27 (this trip was booked under old BAEC rules) should BA decide to take away the soft landing.

It is worth mentioning that this booking has been an absolute nightmare. In January there were multiple simultaneous cancellations and reschedules, and after sorting out all the necessary changes the booking completely broke. It took BA nearly three weeks of multiple mails and calls to put all the pieces back together again. What I had not noticed until last week was that the last leg of my original booking had disappeared! Clearly not all the pieces had been put back together, one was lost under the electronic rug, my final leg of the core booking was supposed to be PMI-MAD. This meant that my final booking for return home flights and hotels were also based from MAD. There was no way I was sticking my head back into the lions mouth to try and get that main booking corrected and final leg reinstated, instead I cancelled the MAD hotel and MAD-LHR-NCL flights and booked all new hotel and flight for PMI, which I have then subsequently needed to cancel at the last minute!

For both days of distillery tours we are embarking on full day structured tours because clearly there will be tastings aplenty and self-drive was not a sensible option. It will be just the guys on the bourbon tours, none of the ladies are bourbon drinkers. They will have their own itinerary during the daytimes and we will meet up around 5pm each evening to see the days out.

And a little bit of ridiculousness: We will be in Kentucky the week before the world famous Kentucky Derby and will miss the race, but, never fear, we have runners (or, more accurately, floaters) in the equally famous Louisville Ken-Ducky Derby

Hopefully that sets the scene for what is to come, expect much tiredness and silliness.

Next stop: Tuesday Evening to Newcastle Airport once more.