Do you drink cognac with ice

America loves Hennessy — we imported 6.4 million cases of it in 2017 — but we tend to have trouble understanding Cognac as a category. Should we pair Cognac with meals, like wine? Is it a dessert drink? A cocktail ingredient?

Do we need fancy glassware to properly enjoy Cognac?

And a smoking jacket?

“Cognac is not a secret society,” Germain Canto, a bartender at Bar Louise in Cognac, France, says. He is passionate about the versatility of his local spirit. “I want people to be less scared of Cognac and what it represents.”

By definition, Cognac is a type of brandy made from wine that is distilled and then barrel-aged.

How to drink cognac warm

To qualify as Cognac, the brandy has to be made according to specific guidelines and with grapes from the Cognac region, a sub-prefecture in southwestern France.

Stateside, Cognac played a leading role in pre-Prohibition cocktails like the Sidecar and Sazerac.

Today, confusingly, it often appears alongside Port on American wine lists. And, to many of us, the very

what temperature should brandy be served at

should cognac be served with ice