Watch City Cigar The 4th Nun Returns

The nutty, woody, earthy, lightly sweet, barely bready burley takes a small lead much of the time. The grassy, tart and tangy citrusy, slightly floral bright Virginias also have slight hints of dark fruit, honey and earth. The mildly spicy, rather plumy, raisiny perique competes with the Virginias for attention, though they occasionally retreat to third place in the experience. The fig topping is a tad more obvious than the prune, and the rum is exceptionally light; not always noticeable. The toppings mildly tone down the tobaccos as they cohesively complement the varietals in terms of the over all taste of the blend. The drops of anise used in the original Three Nuns and Ernie’s first remake is missing here, causing this manufacture to drift away a little from its intent to replicate the original. The strength is a couple steps below the medium level, while the taste is a rung shy of that mark. Won’t bite or get harsh. Burns cool, clean and a tad slow with a light inconsistency in taste. Leaves little dampness in the bowl, and requires a few relights. Has a short lived, pleasant after taste and the room note won’t scare anybody away. This is an all day smoke with a little less potency, sweetness and depth of flavor than both the original and Ernie’s earlier offering.

-JimInks

Easily broken up crumble cake of mostly dark leaf but with some light mottling, the bag scent is heady and robust without being overpowering. I love crumble cakes over ribbons, as I can crumble it to my desired consistency. I preferred it more "pluggy" without rubbing it out too much. The original 4th Nun limited blend was intended to replicate as closely as possible the pre-war Three Nuns. This was to replicate a later issue. As the only Three Nuns I had on hand was the remainder of a tin from 1990, I used it as my baseline for comparison, which may or may not be accurate. I smoked about 5 ounces of this prior to review.

Watch City cannot make a coin cut and were without the services of certain burleys used in the original, so making an exact match was unlikely. That said, it was remarkably close to what I smoked (that, again, may or may not be what Ernie smoked when creating this). The balance in this blend was notable, with all three tobaccos (burley, Virginia, perique) coming to the fore at various times. This was a very punchy blend with a quiet complexity. A fair bit of "figgy" flavor but it's been too long since I've tasted prune, so I can't say if it was "pruney" or not. Very light rum note as well that wasn't always apparent. This one's primary strength was its depth of flavor. It was as deep as the Three Nuns I compared it to, but slightly different in its presentation. It wasn't quite as sweet as the original, but neither was The 4th Nun of 2016. But the punchiness and depth made this one memorable and a worthy if not precise replication. This is a VaPer that I could smoke very often were it available. The burley would make it the perfect foil to something like Watch City's Old Dominion. Good luck finding any of this but if you do, jump on it!