Product Review: Cigar Spike

Hey y’all… It’s me.  Remember me?  Well, I’m in and out, but I figured I’d get something quick to you.  I was contacted a couple months ago about doing a review of the Cigar Spike and it struck me as something I needed to check out.  As you can see from the picture, it’s a relatively simple concept.  You have a pointed spike that you insert into the head of your cigar; it’s sort of along the same concept of a punch-cut.

So, with as little time as I’ve had to smoke lately, once I received it, I put it on my key chain.  I think that’s one of the greatest things about the Cigar Spike.  It’s not so sharp that you’re going to poke yourself if it’s in your pockets (at least I haven’t had it happen to me after carrying it around for two months) and it’s quite unobtrusive.  It’s not dangling off like some key chain punch cutters do.

Anyway, I was able to put this to use a couple of times and here’s my feedback.  It’s good, not great, and, in my opinion it’s not something that can be used with every cigar.  Wait, what?  Yeah…

First, call me simple, but there was a little learning curve.  They say to “gently push spike into cigar end” but “gently” is a very subjective term.  I’m a man!  My gentle wasn’t gentle enough and unfortunately I ended up ruining the ends of a couple cigars trying to spike it.  No worries though, because I was able to cut them into smokeable cigars.  Anyway, once I got the right touch, it was no problem.

So, surprisingly, the draw was quite good with the Cigar Spike.  Being a wedge shape, you can push it in further to get larger holes.  I really had no complaints in that area, but here’s where my biggest problem lies.  Cigars have tar in them.  Depending on the blend and the size, the level of tar differs.  Now, large ring gauge full-bodied cigars usually have more tar than smaller ring gauge mild cigars.  Now, if you’ve never experienced the build-up of tar on your cigar and getting it on your tongue, I don’t suggest going out just to try it.  Take my word for it.

I found that with my larger ring gauge cigars there was more tar build-up than I normally experience.  Actually, with some of my standard smokes I’ve never experienced tar before.  Using the Cigar Spike, unfortunately, I had tar on my lips more than once.

So, depending on the cigar your smoking, a standard cut is going to serve you better than the Cigar Spike.  On others, the Cigar Spike will work just fine, but you’ll have to judge what you’re smoking.  The good thing is that it can serve as an emergency tool… for just a couple bucks you don’t have to worry about not having your cutter with you in that one instant that you forgot it on your counter.

So, there you have it!  Hopefully it won’t be another month before I make it back.

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1. 

   DJ says:

   September 11, 2009 at 8:41 am

   Pretty cool, hua!