Songfacts®:

• Here, Ingrid Andress teams up with Sam Hunt for a duet about a relationship gone south. The title is a play on the phrase "wishful thinking." As the singers down shots, they become increasingly tipsy and more and more wishfully optimistic they can salvage the romance.
• Andress co-wrote the aching and hopeful country-pop ballad with her friend, Canadian singer-songwriter JP Saxe. R&B artist Lucky Daye, Jonny Price and Rykeyz also contributed towards the writing of the song.
• Hunt isn't a co-writer on "Wishful Drinking." It's rare for him to sing on a song he didn't write on, as he often finds it difficult to connect to tunes he didn't have a hand in creating. However, when Hunt met Andress at a Nashville Sports League kickball game, he enjoyed getting to know her. When she asked him to be her duet partner on the track, the "Hard to Forget" star was all in.
  
  "It's usually the people involved in the song," he explained to Kelleigh Bannen on Apple Music as to why he agreed to be a part of "Wishful Drinking." "The writers, my connection to Ingrid, being a fan, and then meeting her and hitting it off and getting to experience her heart first hand."
  
  Plus, Hunt added he can "100-percent relate" to Andress' love of "sad bops." They're among his favorites too.
• Director Sam Siske shot the video at Nashville's Flamingo Cocktail Club. It starts with Andress and Hunt nursing heartaches at a bar, before the pair come together to perform the song on a small stage. Siske also shot Andress' visual for "More Hearts Than Mine."
• Andress didn't have anyone else in mind, other than Sam Hunt, to be her duet partner. If he'd declined to take part she would have just sung it solo. "I'm not sure why, because there are so many people who could crush it," she told Taste Of Country Nights. "I just wanted his tone of voice specifically for the song."