- Style
- Bluegrass
- Tradition
- Canadian (Manitoba), American
- Form
- Reel
- Key
- D
- Level
- 3
- Played on
- Fiddle
In the public domain. Source
Music
Learn the melody first. Each step adds to the one before it.
Adds hammer-ons from the open D and A strings, pull-offs, slides into the G and a triplet on the high E.
Click any note to start from there
Chord chart
History
It sounds old and gets called Irish, but it comes out of western Canada. Manitoba fiddler Andy deJarlis printed it in his 1957 book Canadian Fiddle Tunes from Red River Valley, credited as his arrangement, and it is a favorite of Métis dance troupes. One story says deJarlis and the father of Métis fiddler Teddy Boy Houle played all night until they passed out, and the last tune of the night got the whiskey name.
Its first strain is close kin to older tunes like "Liverpool Hornpipe" and "Silver Spire," and in the Maritimes it goes by "Spirits of the Morning." Texas fiddler Dick Barrett's LP More Fiddle Jam Sessions is thought to have spread it in the United States, and Mike Cross later wrote words to it.