What do you get when you offer free tequila at your Sunday night session?

Just about every musician in a 100-mile-radius. And from that was born Salsa Celtica, a Celtic-flavored salsa band that plays a tasty hybrid of the two music forms.

Toby Shippey was the lad playing salsa music in Edinburgh, Scotland, when he decided to mix it up.

"I play percussion," he said, and was always looking for creative new ways to make music.

"There's a lot of different creative ways of playing traditional Scottish folk music. All the musicians tend to know each other," he said, and they all like playing together. "We used to do a regular Sunday night session with free tequila, and there were especially a lot of Celtic musicians joining in."

So why not combine the two, Shippey thought.

"I wanted that sound. We were playing salsa music for two or three years before we started mixing it up. To suddenly introduce these other elements, it's really exciting. People went crazy for it. It's definitely dancing music. The band's full of great musicians."

And that cast of international musicians includes Toby Shippey on bongos and cowbell, from Scotland; Lino Rocha on vocals, from Venezuela; Dougie Hudson on congas, from Scotland; Javier Fioramonti on bass guitar, from Argentina; Steve Kettley on saxophone, flute and jaws harp, from England; …amonn Coyne on banjo and tenor guitar, from Ireland; Dan Houghton on bagpipes and whistle, from Scotland; Joey De Jesus on trombone, trumpet and flute, from New York; Kenny Fraser on fiddle, from Scotland; Wilmer Sifontes on timbales, from Venezuela; and Simon Gall on piano, from Scotland.

Shippey and his mates have been performing salsa-flavored Celtic music for eight years. "I think we're the only ones," he said. "It really took off when we fused those two things. People really loved it."

Throughout the years, the recipe for the music has changed as the musicians changed.

"What I quite like about it is it's been evolving through time," Shippey said. "And we do some really traditional stuff -- some great sets of Irish and traditional sets."