Saturating ethanol with dry HCl - proposed method

There are others here with much greater synthetic expertise than I have.  However, one idea I saw in a previous thread was to generate methanolic HCl in situ by reacting acetyl chloride with methanol.  I don't see why the same idea should not work with ethanol.

As above, I would use AcCl for this provided the EtOAc side product is not a problem for your application, I do this all the time. You can also use TMSCl.

Agreed.  I can't see why it wouldn't work.  Thanks.  I'm trying to avoid using anything but very simple and safe-ish chemicals.

It is, but I want to make it not buy it because the commercial price is ridiculous given the raw materials.

1.5 M HCl in ethanol is commercial

I agree with dan to try to use acetyl chloride of TMS chloride (both give easily distillable products from hydrolysis). Or just buy it, it really isn't expensive, especially if you factor in the cost of labor to try to make it yourself. Your calcium chloride idea seems like it would be a mess trying to get the calcium chloride out. You are gonna need A LOT because you aren't just drying wet solvent, you are using it to remove bulk water. The CaCl2 is gonna be this awful glop to work with after it absorbs that much water.