Royal Butera Vintage cigar – the best mild I’ve smoked.

Very nice $8.50 smoke!

I stopped by the Cigar Merchant in Blue Springs, MO tonight on the way home to pick up a lighter (Xikar Incline review coming soon) and couldn’t resist asking for a mild staff pick.  The clerk recommended a Butera so here we are at home with a ‘Vintage’ ready to smoke.

I hadn’t ventured into any $6.00+ cigar before last night so this turned out to be a surprisingly good stick that I’ll have to pick up again for my next camping trip ~  nothing like laying in a hammock under the stars with nothing better to do than smoke a stogie.

The wrapper was light and tight with no soft spots and only one very visible vein. It lit easy with the new torch and burned consistently the entire smoke. This is the first stogie that held it’s ash for a third of the length so I almost fest like a real cigar smoker  It also billowed smoke unlike the ‘Romeo Y Julieta’  reviewed last week which was nice as I took the time to inhale the second hand smells. Also at a bit over 6 inches it’s a long smoke for a lightweight like me standing out on the back porch in January but the draw was good and the taste excellent so the cold wind din’t dampen my spirits.

I now understand what experienced reviewers mean by “creamy” that sums this stick up well. There was a tiny bit of wood taste to it but nothing that overpowered my taste buds. There was also a taste of some kind of nut which probably accounts for the flavor.  Unlike other reviews I’ve read this stick didn’t change flavor or smell the entire length but that could be my newness or the fact that outside in the winter is probably not the best review area I could have picked.

My overall rating would be two thumbs up on an excellent stick that will be purchased again in the near future. I wholeheartedly recommend it to a new smoker like myself experimenting with the finer things in life.