A few weeks back I received a surprise package from Steven over at Lighters Direct. The package contained four Vertigo lighters for me to try out.

Prior to receiving the package I hadn’t had any experience with the Vertigo line. Since then I’ve learned that it is a budget line, of sorts, produced by Lotus. Lighters are said to run $30 and under. The Vertigo Intimidator Lighter runs $27.95 from Lighters Direct.

When I first started playing around with the lighter I was a bit confused. Above the quad jets there were three metal plates. At first I thought they were part of the ignition system. I sparked the lighter a couple of times (prior to filling) and saw that the spark was coming from a different location.

I filled the lighter with butane and gave it a spark. After a few seconds the three plates turned bright red and the flame followed suit. At that point I probably wasted a half tank of butane watching the pretty red flame. After a week or two the novelty wore off and a few weeks after that the flame stopped changing from blue to red.

For the few weeks that I’ve been using the lighter I’ve been very happy with its performance. I get between 9 to 12 cigars out of a full tank, which is impressive given the size of the four jets. Reliability has been excellent and I haven’t experienced a single failure.

The only issue that I have with the Vertigo Intimidator Lighter is the size of the flame. While it works great for large format cigars, smaller cigars such as Lanceros and Coronas can be tricky to light without scorching the wrapper.

All things considered, I think that this is a solid lighter for the money and would recommend it to a fan of large ring gauge cigars. If you smoke thinner cigars, you may be better suited with a single flame option (which I’ll be reviewing next).