Note: The deliriously misguided review below has since been retracted. I leave it here only so that you can see what delusions a man will suffer when he hasn't smoked a cigar for two weeks. Read at your own peril...
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What a wonderful thing it is to be surprised by a high-performing inexpensive cigar!
Several months ago, someone gave me two 5 Vegas cigars - one "classic" torpedo from the bottom shelf, and one "Limitada 06" from the top shelf. Thinking the 06 would certainly be the better of the two, I smoked it a few months ago and found it satisfying but not eye-popping.
Then yesterday, encountering beautiful weather for the first time in weeks, I almost took out one of my super-expensive "saving for the right moment" cigars to smoke out on my deck. Unfortunately there was quite a breeze blowing, which can really notch down the experience of a cigar, no matter how high its caliber. So I opted instead for a cheaper cigar. This time, the 5 Vegas "classic" torpedo.
The 5 Vegas line seems to be the victim of a certain amount of disdain among cigar snobs. I haven't seen a magazine review of one in the 17-plus months that I've been a cigarhead, and bloggers seem relatively unmoved. However, based on my experience last night, I urge all of you to go out and buy a five-pack or at least a single 5 Vegas classic torpedo. This thing is incredible for the price, and can easily hold its own with cigars twice as expensive.
To start off, the 5-V torpedo was constructed excellently, with an oily, firm, deep brown sumatra wrapper that gave way just a little upon a squeeze. The band slid right off and, looking at this thing naked, I could have sworn it was a 15-dollar cigar (not me naked, the cigar).
Upon lighting, the smoke was immediately cool, powdery, billowy, and full. The flavor had a mixture of earth, wood and cedary sweetness that are hard to come by in any cigar, much less a lower-shelf one. Touches of coffee, cereal, maple and mineral were also in evidence, i.e. the whole shebang. Although the flavor didn't "develop" midway like a Rocky or a Camacho, it was perfectly balanced from the start, and maintained that balance until the last inch.
What an undervalued, underappreciated cigar! If my humidor wasn't already stuffed to the gills, I'd order a box of these or bid up a few 5-packs at cigarbid.com.
I can't speak for any other sizes in the 5 Vegas classic line, but the torpedo is a winner.
Note: The one I smoked had five months of nap time in my humidor. So you might want to put yours to bed for a while before lighting 'er up. A bit of beauty sleep makes any cigar more refreshing.
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