Songfacts®:

• Whiskey on ice gets the better of Tebey in this country tune, where he attempts to drown out the memories of his ex-girlfriend at the bar. The story behind the song is less romantic, with Tebey and his co-writers, Jimmy Thow and Danick Dupelle, questioning the contents of their beverages after a night of drinking in Mexico left them worse for wear. Tebey recalled in a 2022 Songfacts interview:
  
  "I had gone out for dinner with my producer and a friend, and we eventually found ourselves at a bar for a few drinks. What we didn't know is they didn't use purified water to make their ice cubes. The next morning, we all woke up incredibly sick. A few days later when we emerged from our bedrooms, my buddy Jimmy said to me, 'Man, what were we drinking?!'"
• This is the lead single from Tebey's fourth studio album, Tulum, named after the town in Mexico he visited on a songwriting venture. It was a welcome change in scenery for the country singer. He told Songfacts: "Honestly, something as simple as a change of environment always helps me with the creative process. I've always written my records in Nashville, so being in a different place, surrounded by a different culture definitely stoked my creative fire."
• Tebey, who has also written pop tunes for the likes of Cher, Pixie Lott, and One Direction, found a home as a singer in country music, starting with his 2003 single "We Shook Hands (Man to Man)." But this track finds him embracing his identity as a country singer in a new way.
  
  "I think 'What Was I Drinking' is more country than I've ever done before. But the actual album is going to be a little bit of everything, kinda like my previous albums have been," he told Six Shooter Country in 2022. "I just try to write great songs and I let my songwriting lead me down a specific path when I write. Wherever my songwriting takes me is where I end up. From what I've seen so far, a lot of it is going to be a little more country than what people are used to but I think that's fun!"
• Thow and Dupelle are among Tebey's frequent collaborators. The trio also teamed up on "Used To Love That Song," "Happened On A Saturday Night," "The Good Ones," and "Good Jeans," among others. Aside from being songwriters, Thow and Dupelle are also musicians, with Thow making up half of the country duo Sons & Daughters and Dupelle serving as guitarist for the Canadian country band Emerson Drive.
• An animated lyric video, directed by Brent Hallman, features a stick-figure drawing of Tebey acting out the events of the song. On April 28, 2022, he also released an acoustic performance video recorded in Nashville with members of Emerson Drive as his backing band.
• This peaked at #14 on Canada's Country chart.
• The song earned Tebey and Dupelle a nomination for Record Producer of the Year at Canadian Country Music Awards in 2022.