Songfacts®:

• Penned by Randy Houser with Keith Gattis and Hillary Lindsey, this barroom weeper finds Houser winding down with the help of alcohol.
  
  I'm gonna light one up and sit right here
  I'm gonna drink this hole in the wall out of beer
  And when that ice cold beer loses its buzz
  I'm gonna let that whiskey do what whiskey does
• The classic country drinking song finds Houser returning to the authentic music that he has touched on before including his 2010 They Call Me Cadillac album. "Coming off such a big year in 2017, I really wanted to get back to the basics, experiment with sound and make music that inspired me," said the singer. "'What Whiskey Does' was born from a mission to forget about all of the bells and whistles, relax and just create music that felt good to make."
• The song was created very quickly. "We had the band in the studio on standby while we finished the lyrics, so it was written and recorded in one day," said Houser in a companion in-the-studio video. "Sometimes it happens like that, lightning strikes and you just sort of go with it."
• "What Whiskey Does" also features backing vocals from Hillary Lindsey. Houser described her contribution as "the icing on the cake."