Capstan & Three Nuns Returns to the U.S. Market After 18-Year Hiatus
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Kevin Godbee - May 31, 2013
- 3 min read
Available June 10 – Exclusively from SmokingPipes.com
After a month of speculation and rumors run rampant in pipe forums, it was officially announced today that Capstan and Three Nuns pipe tobaccos would change production houses … and the bigger, more exciting news for Americans is that they will be made available in the USA for the first time in roughly 18-years.
The Capstan and Three Nuns trademarks are owned by Imperial Tobacco, and had formerly been produced by the Orlik / STG factory in Assens Denmark. Although they were in current production, these tobaccos haven’t been commercially available in the U.S.A. for almost two decades.
Mac Baren Tobacco Company has already made the first production run, which, at press time, is just waiting to clear U.S. customs. There will be four versions of Capstan, plus the Three Nuns blend. All of them will be in 50 gram (1.75 ounce) tins.
The five tobaccos are:
- Capstan Blue Flake
- Capstan Yellow Flake
- Capstan Blue Ready Rubbed
- Capstan Yellow Ready Rubbed
- Three Nuns
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Imperial Tobacco, as previously stated, owns the rights to the Capstan and Three Nuns pipe tobacco blends. They are also the owner of Altadis USA. Mac Baren recently acquired the Altadis Pipe Tobacco Division from Imperial and reverted the company’s name back to its original roots—Sutliff Tobacco Company. Mac Baren negotiated this as part of the deal as well, and Sutliff will be the importer / distributor of Capstan and Three Nuns in the U.S. Exact retail prices were not available at press time, but it is expected that they will be just a small amount higher than a Mac Baren branded 50 gram tin.
"We’re excited to have these brands back on the US market after so many years. It’s a great thing for American pipe smokers and for the pipe tobacco market in the U.S." — Paul Creasy, President, Sutliff Tobacco Co.
The four Capstan blends (Yellow and Blue, each in Flake and Ready Rubbed) and Three Nuns will all be available from Smokingpipes.com starting on or about June 10th. They will initially be exclusive to Smokingpipes.com for three months, then will be distributed more widely in the United States.
It’s not clear why the blends were not imported into the US market for so long. However, during their time away from the American marketplace, they were still sold (and were very popular) in Europe; especially Germany, Denmark and elsewhere in northern Europe.
"Capstan and Three Nuns are iconic. They came off of the U.S. market sometime right before I became involved in the tobacco industry in the late 1990s, but they’re the sort of legendary tobaccos that people just don’t forget. I’ve had hundreds of conversations over the years about these celebrated blends. And I’ve carried more than a few tins of both Capstan and Three Nuns back in hand luggage from Denmark and Germany for my own consumption over the years. To say that I’m excited that these are coming back on the market would be a remarkable understatement. Smokingpipes.com will be the launch customer for these blends in the US before they’re more widely distributed. As the head of Smokingpipes.com, I’m really excited about that. But, as a pipe smoker finally able to get these in the US, I’m positively giddy." — F. Sykes Wilford, President, Smokingpipes.com
We here at PipesMagazine.com are quite excited as well.
Written by Kevin Godbee
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Good news indeed. It’ll be interesting to see what puffers on this side of the pond think about these blends.
It’s a shame Mac Baren can’t produce the original Three Nuns though.
Great news. Does anyone know how long Mac Baren has been producing Capstan? I bought some tins last month from the Danidh Pipe Shop in Copenhagen and I wonder if I am already tasting the Mac Baren product? Anyone know when the production shifted in European distribution channels? Thanks
I’d love to try these!
I still have a dozen tins of the Capstan Blue Flake on hand and it will be nice to compare the new release. It’s nice to know there’s no worry about running out of this special Virginia Flake anymore. Thanks for the good news.
Is there also any news when exactly these tobaccos will become available in Europe? We now still have the old stock made by Orlik.
Arno, are the tins in Europe narrow or wide like in the picture above?
The current tins (by Orlik) look like this: http://files.danpipe.de//Bilder/9005-35_1.jpg
I have several tins of these so please don’t tell me that I already bought the MacBaren version.. -_-
This were the tins before the ones above: http://www.tobaccoshop.nl/tobaccoshop/oscthumb.php?src=/images/mini-IMG_5017_2.jpg
I guess that those tins were replaced here by the ones above about half a year ago.
More stuff to try… excellent. Life is good.
Arno, I have both style tins as well. The stuff in the narrow tins (older) is cut into thin slices. The stuff in the newer wider tins is slightly thicker. But the taste is the same to me, or very similar accounting for difference in aging of course. Have you tried the wide tin?
Yeah I am smoking from a wide tin right now actually, bought a month ago in Germany. The thing is, I have not smoked from a narrow tin for over a year, so I can’t really remember the taste. I still have one left of those and I really want to save it.. But the stuff from the wide tin is indeed pretty similar to what I could remember. Still one of my favourite Virginias. Also the smell from the tin, very hay-like. Always remembers me of my uncle and aunt’s farm 🙂
@alfredbarr
the codes on the back of the tins are different. The Orlik/STG tin has 10 digits and then 4 (the first 2 digits is the year of packing). The MacBaren one has 8 and then 5 (the 3rd & 4th digit gives you the year). Here in Europe Orlik version is still in stock at many b&m
Capstan and three nuns were easily available when I was young here in England and in the newspaper shop where I was a paperlad, so were many others.If only I had known then what I know now.We used to pinch capstan full strength and medium fags from the shop on our way out but they were so strong we couldnt smoke them but by christ we tried.