A follow-up note on Santo Domingo — while I absolutely love the flavor and the nicotine punch, I don’t see myself re-ordering this one. Chiefly, that’s because of the grind. I don’t mind coarse grinds — Rosinski Deichgraf and Sir Walter Scott’s The Navigator and Mull of Oa are both quite coarse — but Santo Domingo’s is above and beyond in coarseness, to the point where it’s almost unusable as a result. I invariably wind up with more of it on my shirt than in the ol’ hooter.

Princes Special and Bordeaux, however, will be get regular postings on my orders from here on.

Brief follow-up re: Santo Domingo. I think I’ve found the trick to really getting it where I want it to be, and that is to use a spoon rather than pinch it. In fact, a spoon comes in quite handy with all the ‘tall’ shaped F&T tins, and doesn’t seem to offer any drawbacks due to the coarse, moist grinds of Santo Domingo, Princes Special, and Bordeaux.

For Santo Domingo, I find that a (small and narrow) spoon, in combination with a lot of ‘oomph’ to the sniff, puts it right on target.