What does ‘dry’ mean in alcohol

Question

I’ve never understood what dry gin (Gordon’s), dry vermouth, or extra dry beer (Toohey’s) etc means..
Seems very counter-intuitive to me.

In: Chemistry

Answer 1

In chemistry, “dry” means “anhydrous”. Anhydrous alcohol contains 100% ethanol and no water. This is accomplished by distillation followed by drying over 3Å molecular sieves. Similarly, anhydrous acetone contains no water, and must be distilled and dried with MgSO4.

Drying solvents is a common and necessary procedure in the lab to keep solvents suitable for use.

In this case, however, “dry” gin doesn’t really mean “dry” ethanol