How do you drink armagnac?

A tulip-shaped glass with a narrower opening works best; the house of Gelas explicitly calls the tulip the ideal glass.

The wide cognac balloon you see in old films actually lets the aroma escape and mainly gives alcohol vapour. A tulip glass focuses the aroma upward. Pour to about the widest point of the bowl, not higher.

Serve armagnac at room temperature.

Gelas writes that the eau-de-vie should be at room temperature. Cooling dampens the aroma; warming over a flame or for a long time in the hand mainly drives the alcohol upwards. Simply put the bottle in the room and pour it as it is.

Two to four centilitres is a common measure for a glass of armagnac.

The Trimbos Institute reckons a standard glass of spirits at 35 millilitres, with about 10 grams of pure alcohol. Armagnac has at least 40 percent alcohol, and aged bottles at cask strength considerably more. Pouring more generously adds no extra flavour, only more vapour.

Armagnac is mostly served after dinner; the BNIA calls it a digestif.

For the older bottlings the BNIA mentions foie gras as an appetiser beforehand, and tarte tatin or a chocolate dessert as an accompaniment afterwards. Those are the trade association's examples; which bottle suits which dish is your own choice. We say nothing about what we have not tasted ourselves.

Armagnac can go over ice and in a cocktail, but then the fine notes of an old bottle disappear.

For ice and mixing, a younger bottle makes more sense: a VS or a VSOP. A Hors d’âge or a millésime of decades does better neat in a tulip glass. Blanche Armagnac, which has not been in wood, is in fact served chilled and mixed in France.

Upright, dark, cool and with the cap firmly closed: then armagnac hardly changes after opening.

Maturation stops at bottling, so armagnac does not get older in glass. What does happen is evaporation and contact with oxygen, and that goes faster once the bottle is more than half empty. Decanting into a smaller bottle helps against that.