The humors of whiskey

Let your quacks and newspapers be cuttin' their capers

And curing the vapors the scratch and the gout

With their medical potions, their pills and their lotions

Upholding their notions, they're mighty put out

Who can tell the true physics of all things pathetic

And pitch to the devil, cramp, colic and spleen

You'll know it I think if you take a big drink

With your mouth to the brink of a jug of poteen

So stick to the cratur' the best thing in nature

For drowning your sorrows and raising your joys

Oh what moderation gives hope to a nation

Can give consolation like poteen me boys

No liquid cosmetic to lovers athletic

Or ladies pathetic can give such a bloom

As the sweet by the powers in the garden of flowers

E'er gave their own bowers such a darling perfume

And this liquid so rare if you willingly share

To be taking your hair when it's frizzled and dead

Oh the sod has the merit to yield the true spirit

So strong it will shake all the hairs from your head

So stick to the cratur' the best thing in nature

For drowning your sorrows and raising your joys

Oh since its perfection, no doctor's direction

Can cleanse the complexion like poteen me boys

As a child in me cradle, the nurse from her ladle

Was swillin her mouth with a notion of Pep

When a drop from her bottle fell into my throttle

I capered and scrambled right out of her lap

On the floor I lay crawlin' and screaming and bawling

'Til me mother and father were called to the fore

All sobbing and sighing they feared I was dying

They found I was only crying for more

So stick to the cratur' the best thing in nature

For drowning your sorrows and raising your joys

Oh lord how I'd chuckle if babes in their truckle

Could only be suckled on poteen me boys

Through youthful digressions and times of depression

My childhood's impression still clung to my mind

And at school or at college, the basis of knowledge

I never could gulp 'til with whiskey combined

And as older I'm growing times e'er bestowin'

On Erin's potation, a flavor so fine;

And how ere they may lecture on Jove and his nectar

Itself is the only true liquid divine

So stick to the cratur' the best thing in nature

For drowning your sorrows and raising your joys

Oh lord, 'tis the right thing for courting and fighting

There's naught so exciting as poteen me boys

Come guess me this riddle: what beats pipes and fiddle?
What's hotter than mustard and wilder than cream?
What best wets your whistle? What's clearer than crystal?
What's sweeter than honey and stronger than steam?

What will make the dumb talk? What will make the lame walk?
The elixir of life and philospher's stone
And what helped Mr. Brunel to dig the Thames Tunnel?
Wasn't it poteen from ould Inishowen?

So stick to the cratur' the best thing in nature
For drowning your sorrows and raising your joys
Oh lord, it's no wonder, if lightning and thunder
Was made from the plunder of poteen me boys.