dry

dry is a sensory descriptor mostly understood intuitively because it has attributes that cut across the multisensory perception of flavor. The term’s origins are in winespeak. When a wine is fermented to dryness, all sugar is metabolized into alcohol. When two dry wines are compared, the wine with more acidity is typically perceived as dryer, though different acids exert different perceived forces. When the acidities are neck and neck, the influence of aroma starts to become more prominent because of a tendency to categorize olfaction in terms of gustation. Other sensory contributors like tannin can exert influence on dryness until the word is abandoned for something more salient like bitter or astringent. Dry vermouths are not bone dry but have the minimum of added sugar to enhance their aroma. Dry martinis are defined by an absence of dry vermouth, despite vermouth contributing attributes that may make one wine seem dryer than other.

In spirits, dry is most typically associated with gin and rum categories. Dry gins have no added sugar or appreciable acidity, but the aromas in them that draw the most attention are those that converge with gustatory dryness—piney juniper, lemon peel, black pepper. Rums marketed as dry have an absence of both added sugar and weighty aromas that contribute to body. Dry may be chosen over light because it connotates sophistication.

Dry when applied to a cocktail generally denotes the use of dry vermouth as a mixer or, in the case of mid-twentieth-century Martinis, the absence of any vermouth at all. See Martini. It is also applied to cocktails that downplay sweet elements or suppress them entirely. Drying strategies can be applied to cocktail recipes by replacing a spirit that is perceived as sweet, such as bourbon or cognac, with another perceived as relatively dryer, such as rye whisky or mezcal. Even though the actual sugar content of the drink may remain the same, its perceived sweetness will change. Sour drinks can be made dryer by either decreasing their sugar or increasing their acidity.

Auvray, Malika, and Spence. “The Multisensory Perception of Flavor.” Consciousness and Cognition 17 (2008): 1016–1031.

By: Stephen Shellenberger