Three days, one mission: New bourbon fest joins Red White and Boots festival weekend
Story provided in partnership with Visit Dubois County.
Jay Baker estimates that more than 5,000 children in Dubois County have received shoes since the county hosted its signature country music festival, Red White and Boots, six years ago.
During the Christmas season, Rally Point & the Jasper RWB committee partner with RWB sponsors, such as this year’s presenting sponsor, OFS, to distribute shoes to elementary school students throughout Dubois County.
You know you are doing something special when “You put shoes on these kids, and you hear comments like ‘This is the best Christmas I’ve ever had’ or ‘This is the first new pair of shoes I’ve ever owned,'” Baker said. “It really strikes a chord.”
Originally, the country music festival, created in partnership with Visit Dubois County and Rally Point Events, was designed to raise funds for veterans’ needs and to provide them with shoes through a program called “Combat Boots to Work Boots.”
Rally Point Events founder and president Lance Yearby is a combat veteran who served with the Army National Guard in Iraq. He founded the nonprofit to raise money to help veterans suffering from PTSD in response to the high suicide rates among service members.
They’ve distributed more than 300 pairs of shoes and provided service animals to veterans in the area. But veterans themselves asked the organization to focus elsewhere.
“A couple of veterans suggested to us to figure out how to get this money back to kids who need it,” Baker said.
That suggestion reshaped the program. Today, the shoe give-back partners with four county school districts, which provide organizers with counts, not names, of children enrolled in free and reduced-price lunch programs.
Those moments drive the organizer’s efforts to make the signature festival better every year. And it has grown each year since it began in the field next to Uebelhor Toyota in Jasper. In 2024, it moved to League Stadium and partnered with Destination Huntingburg to add a free Friday concert to the 4th Fridays lineup.
This year, it’s expanding again.
“The thought process was always to eventually create a three-day fest,” Yearby said. “Friday worked out great with 4th Fridays downtown, and Saturday’s Music Fest.”
But he wanted to add an event on Thursday evening, knowing it could attract more people to stay for all three days.
With help from Ashley Barnes, Master Blender, Thursday is now filled by something Indiana has never had: a dedicated bourbon festival.
Yearby first floated the idea three years ago with Jacob Call, an eighth-generation master distiller at Washington Distillery in Kentucky, but Indiana law makes it difficult for out-of-state distilleries to sell directly to guests. A smaller sampling was held last year with Butcher & Barrel. It proved the concept could work. This year, with Barnes lending industry credibility, it has catapulted into a full festival.
The Grand Slam Bourbon Fest caps ticket sales at 250 — a nod to America’s 250th anniversary — and is built around something Yearby and Baker said no other bourbon festival offers: guests don’t just sample, they take bottles home.
Five distilleries — Field of Dreams, Hard Truth, McCracken Curve, Silk Velvet Whiskey and Ingram Distillery — will staff stations around League Stadium’s infield, each brand telling its story and giving guests an opportunity to speak directly to the makers themselves. At night’s end, every ticket holder takes home six bottles, one from each distillery, plus a limited commemorative bottle, all signed by the Master Distiller, Master Blender or owner of the distillery.
“You’re getting your money back if you were to buy the bottles,” Yearby said. “On top of the tastings, you’re getting the experience — the food, the concert, the door prizes.”
Tickets, $500 with one free guest, also include a commemorative gift bag with baseball memorabilia, such as unopened packs of baseball cards from the 80s, access to a cigar bar with a designated smoking area, and coupons for distillery tours. Yearby estimates the take-home value near $600. Then there are the giveaway prizes, including a Pappy Van Winkle 15-year bottle and a Hard Truth bottle made for Gov. Eric Holcomb’s inauguration — both hard to find.
For Baker, part of the draw is discovery. McCracken Curve’s flagship bourbon, Home Place, is named for a family homestead tied to a woman who once taught fourth grade in Jasper.
“You hear stories like that, and it’s like — wow, you had no clue,” Baker said.
Jason Michael Carroll, who opens Saturday’s Music Fest, will play an acoustic set Thursday exclusively for Bourbon Fest guests.
Then, Friday belongs to downtown Huntingburg, where Yearby’s personal connection to Tyler Reese Tritt is bringing her back after a standout performance two years ago.
Her performance at the 2024 concert has had fans pining for her return, so rather than fold her into Saturday’s bill again, Yearby moved her to a free Friday night show at Market Street Park, betting it’ll send visitors straight into downtown businesses the night before the main event.
As they say, but wait, there’s more.
Saturday’s lineup reflects years of thinking about how to keep the festival from aging alongside its audience. After several years leaning on 1990s country headliners, Yearby said it was time to build toward something more sustainable.
“People are getting older,” Yearby said. “We want this Music Fest to grow to be something that’s going to last for years. So I need to get a younger act in there.”
That’s brought in Ole 60 and the Jack Wharff Band, both of whom built sizable followings on TikTok rather than radio. Yearby booked Ole 60 before the band blew up in popularity. The band is friends with Jack Wharff, and that connection brought them into the mix as well. Now, they are exploding in popularity.
“With the Jack Wharff band, with Ole 60, you’re gonna see a crowd like you’ve never seen there,” Yearby said. “It’s gonna be high, high energy… the place [is] gonna rock.”
Mark Wills and Craig Campbell anchor the more traditional side of the bill, alongside Jason Michael Carroll and rising singer-songwriter Sarah Beth Brewer, whom Yearby has personally mentored.
“She will be the next big thing,” Yearby confirmed.
Ticket sales, Yearby said, have already outpaced any previous year — before the festival’s marketing campaign even began.
“We expect a sellout,” he added.
Pulling off three days of music, bourbon and fun doesn’t happen in a few weeks. Baker said planning for this year’s festival began last October.
“It’s basically a year-round job,” he explained.
By the time the festival wraps each year, Baker said there’s not much left in the tank for anyone involved.
“By Sunday, you’re done, you’re physically and mentally exhausted,” he added.
Then Christmas comes around again.
“When you go, and you get to do these shoe give-back events, then you realize all the pain, blood, sweat, and tears are worth every single minute of it,” Baker said, reiterating that all of the proceeds from the event support Dubois County.
Red White and Boots is Saturday, August 29, at League Stadium. You can get a taste of great country music the day before at 4th Fridays in Market Street Park. For the bourbon enthusiast, you have an option to attend a unique and intimate bourbon tasting in League Stadium on Thursday evening.
