Two Nuns and a Seminarian

[OzPiper]

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.

Holy smokes! What a beautiful thing to imagine.

Holy Smokes indeed !

I’m a lapsed Catholic. Back when I attended regularly, I was particularly fond of high masses when they would bring out the censer.

 

[Joe H]

Thanks for the comments, encouragement, and sticking around while I played with tobacco.

@Roach1, I suspect my future blending will be restricted to adding cherry to my various blends as they lose their zing with age. I don’t have tons of tobacco, but I have several years’ worth more than I can smoke and it seems like less time to do it as I get older.

@Mrs. Pickles and @OzPiper, as my dad was in training to be a Catholic Priest, I’m grateful he never took his final vows of chastity. I like to say I’m a practicing Catholic, but the truth is I need the practice because I’m no good at it. Still, many of the trappings of the program are near and dear to me so having a tobacco blend that triggers those memories might just make smoking Two Nuns a religious experience.

Edit: Just because I can find it, here's the violin with the top removed so I could repair some separated corners. Besides the incense smell, there was an impressive spider nest. That went first before anything else could be done. It wasn't a valuable instrument, but worth saving. It sounds great now.

 

[rakovsky]

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.

Joe,
I like your theme a lot with making a seminarian/nun-themed version of Three Nuns.
I was pretty curious about Three Nuns because I like the smell of Church incense like you described. I found online that Three Nuns was actually named because of the Three Nuns Inn in London. The family that owned the inn also made the tobacco blend. The inn's history went back into the medieval time before England became officially Protestant. I take it then that there were literally three nuns in the place in that medieval time.

Which tobacco blends do you think are the most like incense? I never had Three Nuns myself. I had Father Dempsey and it felt like it had a marginal incense note, maybe Lavender. My Mix 965 felt like it had a partial Charcoal note that reminded me of incense, since church incense is burned using charcoal.

 

[Joe H]

Thanks for the interest @rakovsky, I did see that early connection while doing some research for this project. Three Nuns has an amazing, long interesting history indeed.

To my nose, Holiday pipe mixture (Sutiff makes a match) probably has the most noticeable church incense smell - but that's to me. I was an alter boy back in the '60s/'70s in Alaska so my take on incense might be different from a church-goer on the East Coast or in Europe. I have attended mass on the East Coast and in Europe, and the incense smell seemed the same to me though.

 

[sablebrush52]

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.
View attachment 337221
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.

The old Scottish made Three Nuns was a classic blend.
That little tin will go for $$$$$$ on the vintage pipe tobacco market.

 

[OzPiper]

I was an alter boy back in the '60s/'70s in Alaska so my take on incense might be different from a church-goer on the East Coast or in Europe. I have attended mass on the East Coast and in Europe, and the incense smell seemed the same to me though.

I was brought up a Catholic, so I have olfactory memories of masses where censers were used.
And I have attended Greek Orthodox services with my Greek brother-in-law.
Yes, I’m sure both churches use the same incense.

 

[rakovsky]

I was brought up a Catholic, so I have olfactory memories of masses where censers were used.
And I have attended Greek Orthodox services with my Greek brother-in-law.
Yes, I’m sure both churches use the same incense.

There's going to be some crossover and differentiation.
They are both going to use Frankincense or Myrrh as typical basic elements.

I have heard that depending on the season or holiday there could be customs about which kinds of incense are commonly used. I notice that there are a bunch of Christmas-themed incense blends for instance. And the customs about which types of incense I could imagine might differ between what are sometimes referred to as "Rites" (eg. Western Rite vs. Byzantine Rite).

Then also you can find Orthodox churches that use Catholic supply sources like for stained glass, while there are also Orthodox-owned supply sources like Holy Cross Monastery. And there are Orthodox-made incense blends with names like Constantinople or Byzantium.

If I'm going to split hairs or rely on mental associations, Fr. Dempsey tobacco blend reminds me of RC incense because of the potential lavendar note and delicacy in it, whereas My Mix 965 reminds me of Eastern Orthodox incense smoke because they both have charcoal sides to them. But apart from the charcoal side, I couldn't really tell My Mix 965 as being like incense.

 

[Joe H]

I’ve recently been comparing Three Friars tobacco to my version of Three Nuns. The Three Friars blend is a similar smoke to the current version of Three Nuns, but with more noticeable Virginia sweet hay smell and taste. I got a similar harshness to current Three Nuns that would probably reduce with age, or stoving/pressing. Three Friars is not bad in anyway, but like current Three Nuns, not a blend I’d continue to buy as is. But it’s a lot less expensive than Three Nuns if one wanted to do some experimenting, which I did.

To get similar to my version of Three Nuns, I added some Sutliff Holiday match, a chunk (1 ½” to 2”) of cigar and the Two Nuns topping. Then I heated, lightly pressed, and sealed the mixture to induce some artificial aging. I stored the tobacco in a Tupperware container for a couple of days to even out the topping moisture.

After three days or so I mixed in one of my cherry blends that got the left over 3 Nuns tobaccos (403 slices, perique and Virginias). This completely filled a small Tupperware container with about a half pound of tightly packed tobacco. The moisture level was a bit much for smoking but perfect for instigating a secondary fermentation in the sweetened tobacco. Initial testing leads me to believe this will mature into a fantastic blend (since I am quite fond of cherry aromatics).

I’ll let it do it’s thing for a couple of weeks and then I’ll either jar it up or press it into a crumble cake.