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
Wow, this was a rabbit hole – but I did some research.
First, the meaning is pretty easy (and covered) – dry alcohol means not sweet. (London Dry Gin is a different story I’m not going into). So, if you see a wine or beer or alcohol listed as dry, there is usually a sweeter counterpart.
But, why “dry” to describe “not sweet.” The best answer I’ve been able to find is that we can trace the term centuries back – to the extent you need to look at french text from the 1200s for the first recorded references to “vin sec” (dry wine). When terms are that old, you usually loose the etymology – so all that is left is our best guesses.
One very good thought is that wine used to not be aged the way it is now. We lost the art of tightly sealing jars (perfected by Greeks and Romans) in the dark ages, so if you let wine age too long it would go bad. Aging is one way we can breakdown the chemicals that make a wine astringent. If you drink a very astringent wine, you will notice your mouth feels dry. Sweet wines (wines with more sugars in them) mask the astringency and would not have a dry mouth feel. As different ways of making wines and alcohols evolved in the ensuing centuries, we were able to make not-sweet alcohols that don’t have this effect, but the term “dry” stuck.
For more extensive reading with lots of links: [http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=709617](http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=709617)
Latest Answers