Two Nuns and a Seminarian

[Joe H]

Obviously I am up to something involving the old stalwart, Three Nuns. For 30 years I’ve mostly smoked cherry aromatics and OTC blends and was (and still am) completely content. Recently I’ve been cleaning out the old family house where dad lived and came across cans of well over a dozen different brands of codger or drug store tobacco blends dad smoked. I ordered a bunch of samples and smoked my way through the tobaccos of yesteryear that my dad obviously enjoyed. It’s been a fun way to change up my normal smoking routine.

One mystery remained though, a single four ounce tin of Three Nuns. It seemed out of place from the 14 ounce or one pound cans dad bought. It’s also seems a bit more high-end than what he normally smoked. Why only one tin? Was it a gift? A special occasion smoke? Maybe he didn’t like it. Dad was in a Roman Catholic Seminary until WW2 started and he had two sisters who were nuns (they’re all pictured on the modified tin art above). Could it have been a humerous purchase based on the name? I’ll never know for sure, but I wanted to add this particular blend to my list of old tobaccos to try. This thread will just be my impressions of the current version of this grand old name in tobaccos, and maybe a bit of experimenting as I go. I know modifying Three Nuns has been discussed on this web site in years past, but I thought it might be interesting to share my efforts here. No insult is intended to the current blend of Three Nuns nor to those who enjoy it. If anyone has experimented with adding perique to Three Nuns, or otherwise modifying it, please feel free to add your thoughts if you like.

 

[Joe H]

I won’t do a formal review of Three Nuns here as I’m unqualified and in any case, there are far more experienced smokers here who have described this blend within an nuanced inch of its life already. I will give my initial impressions though. Unlike most of the tobaccos I’ve smoked over the last 30 years, Three Nuns’ tin note does not offer an immediate sweet greeting. If it’s not topped with something, then the tobaccos are very pungent on their own. It smells of some sort of stewed fruit and woodfire, an interesting mix of sweet and savory that, to my nose, is so well balanced it is difficult to say if it leans in either direction. If I were selecting a tobacco by smelling tins, I would choose Newminster 403 Superior Round Slice over Three Nuns. Newminster 403 was similar but less pungent, and mildly sweeter smelling in the tin (bag). I think the Newminster was almost a bit caramelly compared to Three Nuns. But again, as a long time aromatic and mostly cherry blend guy, my tastes run towards the sweet end of the tobacco spectrum. I will say the Three Nuns curly cut coins are heavily pressed into the tin and feel that they are at what I would consider the perfect moisture level for smoking. Because the discs are so packed in, it’s difficult to pick out perfectly undamaged discs. I don’t think Mac Baren has been flirting with shrinkflation when packing these tins. That’s good because this was the most expensive tin I’ve ever bought. I’ve paid less for a tin of Dunhill in LA including all of the California taxes. The bag of Newminster discs were predictably less packed and so easier to separate. The Newminster discs were also a bit darker than Three Nuns as the photos below will show. The Newminster blend is also about a quarter of the price of Three Nuns.

Drawing on an unlit pipe was a bit of a surprise; the Three Nuns pipe was noticeably sweeter, with a hint of prune in the taste. It tasted very nice and I preferred the taste to the Newminster. The unlit Newminster discs tasted just as the bag note suggested; not bad in any way, just not as sweet as the cold draw of the Three Nuns. This is the opposite of what I’d expected based on smelling the tin and bag.

Once fired up, Three Nuns came across as a strong, flavorful version of an American OTC type tobacco. It had more of a cigar type style than my normal aromatics or other old codger blends. The Newminster 403 discs were creamier, smoother and not as intense. Both would be great “upgrades” to the everyday type drugstore blends I’m familiar with. Three Nuns reminded me a lot of Holiday Pipe Mixture, which is one of my more highly rated codger blends (with its mixture of Black Cavendish, Burley, Latakia, Perique and Virginias). The Newminster discs had a taste that reminded me of roasted marshmallows over a campfire. By about mid-bowl the Newminster started tasting more like Three Nuns and by the time I finished, there wasn’t much between them except that the Three Nuns had a bit rougher edge to it. Both required more relights than I’m used to and both seemed to have a higher level of nicotine than my standard aromatics. Afterwards I considered the aftertaste really nice, like that of a quality cigar.

In summation, to a guy who is mostly an cherry aromatic fan and completely happy with eight or so of the old codger blends, both of these two blends seem like special occasion smokes, certainly not all-day smokes to me. Maybe because they are both new to me, either blend seems like the kind of tobacco I would smoke when I just want to smoke a pipe. My normal blends are usually an enhancement to something else I’m doing outside (yard work, walking the dog, that sort of thing). I’d be hesitant to smoke either of these two in an area with lots of non-smokers. My cherry blends are embarrassingly popular with just about everyone, frequently drawing compliments or questions. My suspicion is that these two blends would be less popular on the shared trails I often walk. But up in my backyard tree house, they provided an extremely enjoyable solitary hour or so.

The big question is, if I’ll only smoke this sort of tobacco once in a while, can I mix up something even more significant? Will adding perique, Virginias and the old Three Nuns rum, brown sugar and anise topping kick it up a notch, or just change it? Finding out will be the goal of the rest of this thread.

 

[Mrs. Pickles]

An extraordinary start! Looking forward to reading more as your adventure continues with Perique and the Old Three Nuns toppings.

 

[kcghost]

Two Nuns and a seminarian looks good!!

 

[OzPiper]

In the spirit of ecumenism you could do a blend of 2 Nuns and Seminarian with Presbyterian

 

[Peter Turbo]

Was cleaning out my Grandfathers place when he died and also found the same tin of Three Nuns “Made in Scotland”

Apparently it was a really good VaPer back then. I wouldnt know!

 

[Joe H]

Thanks for the comments, guys! @OzPiper, certainly a blending of the denominations would be a Parsons' Pleasure.

This post will be my lawyerly small print wherein I acknowledge that, in over 120 years, things change. I know there is no possibility that my small-scale amateurish machinations will result in a blend that replicates the original Three Nuns recipe. To emphasize the futility of such a quest, please see the photo below.


You will see the 50 year old version is quite dark. That can (identical to the one I found at my father’s house) was opened on a youtube video. I’m sure it would be an amazing smoke, but rather different than it would have tasted 50 years earlier. Would it have been better for the 50 years of slumber? I guess “that depends” is probably the best answer any of us could give. The 30 year old stuff is another recent photo of old Three Nuns. I’m sure it smells and tastes differently when compared to the older sample, or the most current production seen on the right. The advertisement below is from the 1960s and has a pretty good picture of the curious little discs taken contemporaneously. Note that they look quite different from any of the existing samples I could find above.


So where does that leave us? If modifying the current version in hopes of reproducing the original is virtually impossible, then one might ask, “what’s the point?” What am I trying to make?

I’ll answer that last question with a short aside. Not too long ago I was smoking a bowl of the Sutliff match of Holiday Pipe Mixture and at one point the flavor or smell or the combination gave me a pang of déjà vu so vivid I felt like I was a kid in the 1960s or ‘70s in my dad’s basement, putzing around while he smoked. Honestly, for a second, I could see him like it was an old movie. It really caught me off guard in a good way. Sometimes smells or tastes can do that; unlock buried memories.

So I guess what I’m trying to concoct is a memory, or at least a tobacco blend that might occasionally transport me back to a time when responsibilities were nonexistent; dad was alive, young and strong, and life was happy, simple and seemingly endless.

And just to bring this post to a close with a bit more acknowledgment that things change and they can’t be made new again, below are the most current pictures I have of the Two Nuns and a Seminarian.

Only Sister Jonathan (on the left) is still with us, and I took the recent picture during her 100th birthday. This February she’ll be 102 if The Good Lord is willing to share her with us a little longer.

Thanks for reading. Today I’m going to start experimenting with perique. I’ll report back with my impressions.

 

[Joe H]

My first experiment was to take the original Three Nuns tobacco percentages (see below)

and add various amounts of Burley (the original Three Nuns used 31% Burley as a filler), Virginia and Perique. My initial attempt was to use roughly 66% of Three Nuns, and 11% each of Burley (Mixture 79), Low Country Natural Virginia and Sutliff TS-20 Louisiana Perique. I used the same percentages with the Newminster 403 slices.

The results were interesting but before I describe my impressions of the smokes, I need to point out the obvious fact that my day-to-day experiments will not benefit from the time these tobaccos ought to have to marry and unify. I’ll invest the time needed for that once I feel like my percentages have resulted in something worth aging (assuming that ever happens).

By combining 2/3rds of the original coins with 1/3rd (by weight) of Burley/Virginia/Perique, I expected a pretty noticeable change. It didn’t really happen, at least to my nose and mouth. I could detect the Perique in both, but I found it a subtle undercurrent at best. I didn’t detect the added Virginia at all. My first impression was that the Three Nuns bowl was still stronger and with a bit of harshness that the 403 bowl lacked. Once the bowls were going well, the Three Nuns harshness dissipated but it remained a slightly more intensely flavored smoke. The church incense note that reminded me of the old Holiday codger blend was not as strong, but still present. The marshmallows note I got from the straight 403 slices was mostly non-detectable this time. As with the straight mixtures, the further into the bowls I smoked, the less difference there was between them. In both cases, the blends produced huge clouds of cigar like smoke, which I normally don’t get from my aromatics.

I can’t say the addition of three different tobaccos to either Three Nuns or the Newminster 403 made either better, just a little different. Between the two I preferred the Three Nuns version, though I missed whatever it was that more strongly reminded me of the Holiday pipe mixture in the straight Three Nuns. For my next experiment, I’ll use identical percentages but swap the 11% Mixture 79 with 11% of a Holiday match blend. My hope is that I will get a slightly less harsh Three Nuns, but with a stronger hint of whatever it is that reminds my taste buds of the old Holiday blend. I’ll report back once I get a chance to continue the mad scientist routine.

 

[Joe H]

Today’s test smoke: Identical to the last test but with match Holiday Pipe Mixture swapped for the Mixture 79. I considered this blend better than the previous version and possibly better than either Three Nuns or the Newminster 403 slices straight.

The Three Nuns mixture regained the noticeable Holiday mixture hints which I liked in the original, unblended tin. This latest blend was slightly less rough than before but still more intensely flavored than the 403 version. I smoked half a bowl let it cool for an hour and the relight reminded me of the Hemingway series of cigars by A. Fuente, one of my all-time favorite cigars. I really like this version.

The Newminster version lacked the Holiday or marsh mellow hints, was smoother than the Three Nuns version, but not as intensely flavorful.

Both blends smoked cool, with minimal relights and huge amounts of smoke, both were really good smokes. As before, the further into the bowls I smoked, the less differences I noticed.

Since the two blends are so similar, my next test will be to keep the third of introduced tobaccos (11% each Perique, Virginia and Holiday) to add to a blend of Three Nuns and Newminster (at 33% each). Hopefully this will combine the more intense flavors of the Three Nuns blend with the smoother creaminess of the 403 version. I’ll update this thread once I get a chance to try it out.

 

[HawkeyeLinus]

Appreciate the commitment - but without the original leaf and fresh out of the tin and not aged Three Nuns actually from 70s (impossible) I assume there really isn't a way to get there?

Anyway, sounds like a lot of fun and if you think you've gotten there, that's what matters.

And . . . I came expecting some inappropriate joke!

 

[Joe H]

Today’s test:


33% Three Nuns

33% Newminster 403 Superior Round Slices

11% Sutliff: TS-20 Louisiana Perique

11% Low Country's Natural Virginia

11% match Holiday Pipe Mixture.


The result did move the smoking experience to the center of the two previous mixtures which each contained 66% of Three Nuns or Newminster Slices, and it was a really enjoyable smoke, but I don’t think it was an improvement over either of the previous ones. I suppose in the interest of being thorough, I’ll have to test all three mixtures together to see which my taste buds prefer. My members of the Order of Saint Benedict on the modified tin art all took vows of poverty so mixing in the less expensive Newminster slices is appealing, but my primary goal is a tobacco combination I really like before I start adding the topping. I’ll check back in once I am consistently satisfied with the percentages.

Oh and @HawkeyeLinus, I agree I’ll never replicate what was sold under the Three Nuns label in the 70s. Even if I did, I’d have no way of knowing. I did start smoking cigars in the 70s, but it was another 20 years before I added pipes to the mix.

And just because I like posts with pictures, I’ll include some shots of my back yard. Since this experiment involved a tobacco unlike the aros I normally smoke, I’m smoking this primarily in my back yard. I’m lucky to have a small wooded and private back yard with several nice spots to relax and smoke. If the weather turns nasty, I can always escape to the covered deck of the tree house.

 

[OzPiper]

Lovely spot you have there

 

[Joe H]

After the site crash, I see a few posts were lost. Luckily I'm terrible with computers, so I write most of my input on a word document and copy it over to this site as I go. I'll repost whatever I posted that got deleted, but I obviously can't reproduce anyone else's posts.

@OzPiper, thanks! It's a great spot to experiment with blends that might not be as popular with the general public as my cherry aromatics.

The latest tobacco mixture test:

This was a three-pipe session so I could see how my current top mixtures stood up against each other and the original. I mixed up two variations to compare to the current Three Nuns blend, packed three pipes and set aside enough time to smoke all three. Below is my mad-scientist laboratory.

When smelling the two mixtures compared to straight Three Nuns, the 11% perique addition was very obvious. More obvious than I’d like if I was only sniffing unlit tobacco; but the purpose is to smoke it after all. Perique is not my favorite tobacco on its own (either the smell or the taste of a bowl of straight perique). I think the DFK used as a perique substitute in the current version of Three Nuns does a good job in terms of the pouch note compared to the other two versions above. If anything, I prefer the smell of unlit straight Three Nuns, but one thing is pretty clear: the original Three Nuns was a “Perique Blend.”

In an industry document published by the British-American Tobacco Company on 6 February 1975, Three Nuns was identified as notable due to the use of perique in its mixture.

And prior to the publication of the BA Tobacco Co’s report, there was a late-1960s ad campaign touting perique as the “secret ingredient” in Three Nuns.

But perique in Three nuns was reduced gradually and completely eliminated sometime around 1998 to 2003. Why?

Perique does cost a bit more than most other tobaccos. 3N internal docs also make it clear that shipping it from the US to wherever their production facilities were in Scotland was problematic. It was shipped at a moisture level in the 30% range and adjusted as required once in the factory. I wonder if there was spoilage or a change in taste due to shipping in those days. They even experimented with freeze-drying and rehydrating perique.

Modern 3N is to me a darn good blend. Adding perique (and extra Virginia and Burley to prevent overwhelming the current blend) has been a fun experiment, but more importantly, it’s lead me to the conclusion that – based on my particular tastes – I prefer the versions with the additions. What’s more, there was very little difference between the second and third column mixtures. If forced to choose, I would pick column three. That’s great as it allows me to cut the cost of this experiment by blending the expensive Three Nuns discs with an equal amount of the much cheaper Newminster discs. The frugal Benedictines on my tin art would approve.

So with an acceptable mixture selected, it’s time to start experimenting with the original Three Nuns topping. I’ll check back in once I have something to report.

 

[Joe H]

A quick word about the casing and topping used in the original Three Nuns: They used a lot! The casing mixture was made of gum Arabic, brown sugar, glycerine and water. 23.5 pounds of this mixture (the percentages are available on-line) were used to treat 100 pounds of the dry Three Nuns tobaccos. Once 100 pounds of cased leaves were stripped and ready to be twisted, another 5.25 pounds of casing was added.

After the final dose of casing was added, the topping was then applied. The topping included rum (denatured to avoid alcohol tax), brown sugar and anise. One pound was applied to the burley and manufactured perique. At some point another 5.25 pounds of the topping was added to the whole 100 pounds of the blend.

For my part, I’ll only be dealing with toppings. A total of 6.25 pounds of topping was applied to 100 pounds of tobacco. Since 6.25 pounds is 100 ounces, it's pretty easy to work out how much topping my much smaller batch should require.

 

[OzPiper]

After the site crash, I see a few posts were lost. Luckily I'm terrible with computers, so I write most of my input on a word document and copy it over to this site as I go. I'll repost whatever I posted that got deleted, but I obviously can't reproduce anyone else's posts.

Now THAT is backing up !

 

[Joe H]

This project has taught me a lot about this tobacco blend. I never knew the original Three Nuns was a Virginia/Burley (31%!)/Perique blend, I’d always heard it described as a VaPer. I also never knew the original used so much flavored casings/toppings in the manufacturing process. The old tobacco industry on-line archives were a big help in this regard. Also a big help was the awesome info contained in the thread, A Real Three Nuns Substitute :: Pipe Tobacco Discussion - https://pipesmagazine.com/forums/threads/a-real-three-nuns-substitute.33574/

And the amazing research contributed by @timpiper. I won’t repeat the digging and decoding that was required to come up with the original Three Nuns topping recipe. Yes, to stymie industrial espionage, they used code-names for ingredients in their documentation! The bottom line is that rum, brown sugar and anise were the key players in the topping.

I bought a cheap bottle of rum to add to the granulated brown sugar and star anise we already had in the house. In a small pan I heated a dollop of the rum with a teaspoon of the sugar. Once the sugar was dissolved I added one slightly crushed segment (seed and husk) of a star anise-seed-thingy. I continued heating and tasting until I felt it had enough anise flavor and removed the seed. I reduced the rum by about half and let it cool. The mixture was poured on a paper towel and a couple bowls worth of rubbed out and fairly dry “Two Nuns and a Seminarian” was spread over the damp towel. The whole thing was folded up and wrapped in cling-wrap for about an hour or so, until the tobacco had become a bit too damp for smoking. Then it was removed from the towel and zip-locked overnight in a warm spot.

The result really changed the bag note but it wasn’t obviously a rum odor, more of a vanilla smell combined with the tobacco. Smoking the batch once it dried to a proper moisture level left me with the impression that the topping was too bland or not intense enough to compete with the tobaccos. It was good but the pouch note did not translate to the burning tobacco aroma or taste. Of course, this is from a decades long aromatic smoker.

The next batch of 2 Nuns was mixed directly in a bowl with a slightly stronger topping until it was thoroughly coated, and then bagged overnight to allow the topping to even out. The anise smell was virtually nonexistent so I tossed the anise seed into the bag of tobacco to see if it would increase that smell. Again, the bag didn’t smell of rum, but a sweeter, almost vanilla or caramel version of the tobacco mixture before topping. Smoking this batch might not have seen the Heavens open up and a choir of angles sing, but here's what did happen:

Notice the rainbow. This version was a really good smoke, lots of the church incense note I get (and love) from Holiday Pipe Mixture, with a very pleasant, sweet smoke smell. I wouldn’t call it an aromatic, but I don’t think anyone would mistake this for cigar or cigarette smoke.

I tried another batch alongside a modified mixture which contained a bit of extra Virginia. My hope was for a sweeter smoke. It didn’t work and the version without extra Virginia was the clear winner to me. To increase sweetness, I’ll try a slightly stronger topping mixture next time. This will probably bring my version farther away from the original Three Nuns, but I’m making this blend for me. If the stronger topping isn’t to my liking, I’ll return to the “rainbow version.”

Once I feel I’ve pushed the topping as far as it can go, I’ll mix up however much I’ve got material for and report back in. I’m in a bit of a rush to finish this project as the mountain tops outside Anchorage are getting snow whenever it rains in town and pretty soon my pipe smoking will slow way down.

 

[Joe H]

I’m finally satisfied that my Two Nuns and a Seminarian is ready to be packed up. I weighed out an ounce and a half of Three Nuns, a matching amount of the Newminster 403 discs, and a half ounce each of the Perique, Virginia and Holiday Pipe Mixture. Then I cooked up a slightly stronger version of the rum, brown sugar and anise topping, and put that in a clean spray bottle.

Finally, I made a cardboard form the same diameter as my dad’s old four ounce Three Nuns tin. I made my form a bit taller than the four ounce tin as I knew the layering process would take up quite a bit of room before it all got pressed down. The form was lined with a couple layers of cling wrap.

Then I spread out a layer of Three Nuns and 403 discs in the form and gave them a spritz of topping, followed by a sprinkle of the three additional tobaccos, which also got a spritz. I continued filling and spritzing in alternating layers (kind of like making a lasagna) until I ran out of tobacco, which coincided with me running out of space in the form.

I heated the tobacco – form and all – in my microwave for 30 seconds at half power which resulted in warm but not hot tobacco. Then I hand-pressed the layered tobacco down an inch or so, which perfectly fit dad’s old tin. I transferred the warm tobacco puck, tightly wrapped in the cling wrap, into the tin and taped the lid to make it air tight.

I kept the tin warm overnight to aid the tobacco in absorbing the topping and I’ll wait a few weeks to let the moisture level even out and the tobaccos meld. The extra tobacco from this project got mixed into a four-ounce bag of cherry aromatic I’ve been aging and I’m anxious to see how that will taste.

I’ll report back in on this thread in a couple of weeks (if I can wait that long) once I crack the lid!

 

[Joe H]

It's done!

1.75 ounces of Three Nuns became. . . . . . . . . . . 4.5 ounces of Two Nuns and a Seminarian

When the tin was packed almost two weeks ago, it really had a strong rum and anise smell. I was worried I might have overdone the topping, but clearly some magic was at play in the tin during the brief rest. Surprisingly, there is no obvious rum or anise smell – more of a fermented prune or raisin or plum note that gives a strong sweet, tangy fermented tobacco smell. The tobacco and topping blended well and it smells surprisingly mature. I imagine the added moisture and sugar in the topping, along with the warm packing I did contributed to a secondary fermentation in the tobacco. It’s amazing how well the topping blended with the tobacco. The tin note is far improved (to my nose) compared to straight Three Nuns. The tin note is very old-school pipe tobacco shop like; just a pleasure to smell.

Smoking a couple of bowls revealed light notes of rum and anise, but they’re not obvious or obtrusive; they’re there if you look for them, but you do have to look for them. The harshness I got from the original tin of Three Nuns is gone. There were lots of Holiday Pipe Mixture incense smells and tastes. I was lucky to attend a Christmas mass in an Eastern Orthodox church in Prague in the early 1990s, the incense smell was quite similar, and to the incense used for special occasions in Roman Catholic services. Recently I repaired a 100+ year old German church violin and when I removed the top, the smells from inside were again reminiscent of the incense notes I get from this blend.

I wouldn’t consider Two Nuns and Seminarian an aromatic blend, but I have a sweet tooth when it comes to tobacco. To my aro-centric pallet, this is a significant smoke, worth having for those days when a cigar would be nice (I don’t smoke them anymore) or when I just want a strong, flavorful pipe to savor rather than as an adjunct to some other activity. This tobacco is more cigar-like than my normal blends and has more nicotine than my mild aromatics. Probably the nicotine level in 2 Nuns is medium or maybe even a touch below. I normally smoke stuff that I consider having very low nicotine. The new blend is a complicated smoke with lots of flavors worth concentrating on.

It's been a fun project researching Three Nuns and messing around with tobacco this last month. It was an enjoyable project that resulted in a really nice 4.5 ounce tin of tobacco that will get used when I want a change from my standard stream of aromatics and codger blends.

Thanks for reading!

 

[Roach1]

Glad your happy with it and enjoyed your journey as new Blender. Where do I place my order?

 

[Mrs. Pickles]

Recently I repaired a 100+ year old German church violin and when I removed the top, the smells from inside were again reminiscent of the incense notes I get from this blend.

Holy smokes! What a beautiful thing to imagine.