Vertigo Hawk Triple Jet Flame Lighter Review

2026-07-25  Buy Again My Money

Filed under: Starter Kit · How to Light

Verdict: Buy Again... and if you're just getting into cigars, this is the one I'd hand you first. I'm pretty sure this is the very first torch lighter I ever bought when I got into cigars, and it lit basically my whole first three or four months, tons of cigars, without ever giving me trouble once. It's a no-frills triple torch for about ten bucks, and the auto-open cap alone makes it the easiest lighter to hand a brand-new smoker. Mine's the black-and-blue.

The Setup

• What it is: the Vertigo by Lotus "Hawk," a triple-jet torch lighter. Three flames, a big flame-adjustment dial that's the whole bottom of the lighter, a see-through fuel window, and an auto-opening cap. No punch, no cutter, no cigar rest... it does one job
• Build: metal body, feels solid for the money, lifetime warranty. Round-ish shape with the ignition button bumping out one side, so it's not a streamlined lighter, but it's light and it holds up
• Street price: $9.99 new, right around ten bucks anywhere. This is a budget lighter and it doesn't pretend to be anything else
• What I paid: no receipt, but somewhere around ten dollars... this was one of my very first cigar purchases, so we're going back to the start for me. My own money, obviously nobody was sending me anything back then
• In service: heavy for my first three to four months of smoking, sporadically ever since... never once failed to light

Why It Was My First

When you're brand new you don't know what you want in a lighter yet, so you grab something cheap that works. This was mine, and it turned out to be a great first call. It lit every cigar I threw at it that first stretch, and I threw a lot at it. Zero failures, zero fighting it. For somebody just figuring out how to toast and light a cigar, that reliability is the whole ballgame.

What It Gets Right

The auto-open cap is the beginner feature. You can't flip the cap open by hand. You press the ignition button and the cap pops open on its own and lights, and it stays open until you close it yourself. Sounds like a small thing, but for a new smoker who keeps forgetting to open the cap before they hit the button, it just removes the problem. Push, light, done. That one feature is why I'd hand this to a beginner over anything else at this price.

Triple flame, huge adjustment range. Three jets, and the entire bottom is the adjustment dial, so you can dial it from a small flame up to a big one and everywhere in between. It's a torch, so three jets drink some fuel, but the tank's big enough to get you through several cigars before a refill.

The fuel window actually helps. There's a clear window down the side so you can see how much butane is left. On a triple that burns through fuel, being able to eyeball the level so you're not caught empty is genuinely useful.

It runs cool. Even after lighting a cigar, the metal around the jets never got hot enough to burn my fingers. It vents well. You can even rest a cigar on it for a second without a problem, which you can't say about every torch I've used.

The jets are compact enough for touch-ups. The three flames sit close together, so it's not a big wide wall of fire. When you need to touch up a burn, you can do it without scorching off a bunch of extra tobacco, which a big flame will do to you.

It's light and pocketable. It weighs almost nothing. Toss it in your sweatpants or gym-shorts pocket and forget it's there. Not the sleekest shape with that button sticking out, but it disappears into a pocket just fine.

What I'd Change

Not much for what it is. It's basic on purpose. No punch cut, no built-in cutter, no cigar rest... but I don't want any of that on a ten-dollar starter torch anyway, so I don't count it against it. It does exactly its one job and nothing it's not supposed to.

The only real reasons to grab something else: if you specifically want a quad-flame lighter, or you want a single-flame lighter for super-fine touch-ups and nothing else, then go get that instead. For everything else, this checks the boxes.

One more small plus for a beginner: at ten bucks, if TSA snags it when you're flying, you're not going to be crushed. Ten dollars isn't nothing, but it's not a fortune, and that matters when you're new and still figuring out what you're doing.

Bottom Line

This is the lighter that got me started, and it earned it. Triple torch, big adjustment range, a fuel window so you're never surprised, it runs cool, and it never once let me down through the busiest stretch of learning to smoke. The auto-open cap makes it the easiest torch to put in a new smoker's hand. It's not fancy and it's not trying to be. For about ten bucks it does its one job every single time.

Would I buy it again? Definitely, and it's the lighter I recommend as your first torch without thinking twice.

Best for: the brand-new cigar smoker, the "keep one in the car" backup, the lighter you don't cry over if it walks off or gets left at security. Just not the pick if you've got your heart set on a quad or a dedicated single-flame.

Gear gets the same one-question treatment as the cigars... would I spend my own money on this again? This one's a yes, and it's the one I'd start a beginner on.

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