"Kisses Sweeter Than Wine" is a popular song, with lyrics written and music adapted in 1950 by Pete Seeger and Lee Hays of the Weavers.

[citation needed] A retired Irish farmer named Tim Galvin was recorded in 1982 singing a version called "Droimeann Donn" which uses a very similar refrain melody to the one adapted by Leadbelly.

The American folk and blues singer Lead Belly heard Irishman Sam Kennedy singing "Drimmin Down" in Greenwich Village.

Lead Belly did not like the lack of rhythm, a common feature of Irish songs, so he made the piece more rhythmic, playing the chorus with a 12-string guitar.

In 1950, the quartet the Weavers, to which Seeger belonged, had made a hit version of Lead Belly's "Goodnight, Irene", and they were looking for new material.

The music was credited to Joel Newman and the lyrics to Paul Campbell, both names being pseudonyms for Howie Richmond, the Weavers' publisher.