Chris Bandi's whiskey song isn't about whiskey at all, but they never really are. The country newcomer performed an acoustic version of a song from his just-released Chris Bandi EP and shared it Taste of Country readers first.

This exclusive premiere finds Bandi performing around a campfire, with just one friend on guitar and high harmonies. The Backyard Sessions is his name for a series of acoustic videos featuring songs from the seven-song EP. It includes the radio version of his single "Man Enough Now," a song with nearly 80 million streams.

"They Make Whiskey" uses country music's most inspiring alcoholic beverage as a vehicle for exploring his heartbreak. "They make whiskey to get me over you," he sings with every refrain. The fully produced version is at the same tempo as this acoustic video, but drums, a thin electric guitar lick and bass are added to create a more robust — but still plenty personal — experience.

"I wrote ‘They Make Whiskey’ with Billy Montana and Dave Turnbull, and we were finishing out my EP and we had a slot for one more song, and we figured what is a country EP without a song about whiskey," Bandi tells ToC. "I love how it turned out. The chorus is so cool. Something about it makes it stick in your head on repeat.”

2020 has been an up and down year for Bandi, a singer and songwriter on the cusp of breaking for many years before signing with the Records record label. A tour with Matt Stell was bookended by a tornado touching down five houses away from his East Nashville home and the coronavirus pandemic. The time at home allowed him to fix his house and to finish this new EP, his first after releasing several singles digitally.

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