For a singer, the only solution for nerves (and the resultant disease, "cotton mouth") is a humble little thing called "acceptance."
Nerves are nerves. We get anxious or we overthink something and, "wheee!," there they are.
No amount of water from the fountain, a cooler or 10-gallon plastic bottle is going wet your whistle enough to overcome a case of nerves before that callback, meeting with the director or producer, or life-changing performance opportunity.
Truly, the best way to deal with nerves is not to focus on them at all. Don't expend good energy on trying to suppress something very normal. Accept nerves as part of your current condition.
Yeah, some singers go nutty with their water and throat sprays, lozenges, etc., because --at that point/by that time -- it's too late for them to treat the cause and they are now stuck treating the symptom.
How to avoid the cause?
Train your body to lead your voice, not your voice to lead your body.
Train athletically, incorporating your body into your voice, not just leaving your vocal cords to do all the heavy lifting.
Don't think against yourself. Circumvent the mind by first training your spirit into your singing. The use of energy is crucial, whether you want to conquer a stage or a stadium.
Train body, spirit, voice in that order and the mind won't be able to play the naughty tricks we like to play on ourselves.
Like talking ourselves out of our passion for singing, bringing up old wounds, rejections, resentments, criticism, childhood traumas... ferget 'em!
As in a 100 meter dash, when we train our voices athletically, nerves disappear at the sound of the starting pistol (or at the bell tone of our audition song). There can be no nerves, nor any awareness of nerves, when we are only focused on winning the race.
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