Mac Baren Three Nuns

These curlies are a treat. I would describe the taste as sweet, compact, spicy and well belanced with a hint of cinnamon. Three nuns is simply outstanding.

This is one of the great classics of the pipe tobacco world that, since its departure, has never been duplicated. It still amazes me that this is not available, of course in the good old days if you had said Sobranie, Cotton & Three Nuns would cease production and Dunhill, Rattray and McConnell would be made on the Continent you would have been laughed out of the tobacconist. Anyway, this is a great VA/Perique flake, sweet and stewed fruit/pruny on the palate, with an earthy hint to the taste and aroma. I am never quite able to accurately describe the taste or smell, it is just something unique. Note: While it is decent tobacco, the product currently being offered as "Bell's Three Nuns"....is not. It's like taking a Mustang and slapping the Ferrari horse on it, naming it does not make it so. Nothing really similar to the Three Nuns I smoked.

If the current incarnation of Three Nuns isn't up to snuff, as many of the old hands on here suggest, than the original must have truely been heavenly stuff. I've smoked my fair share of vapers over the last couple years and Three Nuns stands up to the best of them. Its strong, slighty sweet and full of flavor. Everything I look for in a vaper. Perhaps its not the most subtle blend out there but dammit it's tasty! Maybe I'm just a sucker for brisk baccies but this stuff is just plain good in my book. Highly recommended for the vaper lover, if you can get your hands on it (I had to get some from a friend in Belgium).

About a year ago I took two tins of TN of unknown age which had been given to me in a dessicated condition and rehydrated them. I smoked a bowl (it was outstanding) and placed the remainder in a bail top jar where it has remained untouched ever since. When I opened the jar and took a whiff, the tobacco smelled exactly like a box of raisins, not raisiny, exactly like raisins. The tobacco had darkened considerably compared to a newly opened tin of TN. The smoke was a treat. I am a perique lover. It reminded me of Escudo far more than other bowls of TN I have recently smoked. If I could get hold of this TN on a regular basis, I would smoke it everyday. I have a stash of the newer version TN tins on hand, and I am hoping that age will create what is now in the jar. If not, I will dry it completely and rehyrate it to see if that works. It delivers a smooth, sweetened Va. flavor laced with mouth watering perique. I have heard that the newer version contains no perique. We will see. Meantime, I give this version four stars. Paddy.

I had seen the Three Nuns around for years when I was a youngster, and like all things that were everywhere years ago, they are nowhere when you finally want them!

Luckily a good friend and unnamed online pipe dealer and pressed tobacco expert sent me a tin from his own "Private Stash" as it is readily available in Europe (Which is where I am not.) Needless to say, I was eager to pop the seal.

Upon opening, the tin has an interesting sort of warm leathery smell, with a little zingyness from the perique (Which is not the dominating aspect of this blend IMO).

I would call this a VA with a hint of Perique to be honest, but its excellent nun the less (Sorry, couldnt resist :))...

The tobacco is very strong, but this isnt imtimidating, its a cool and flavour filled mixture that could be a nightcap or an all dayer, and seems to satisfy my needs whenever I decide to imbibe. I do find the rounds are best in a think walled group 3, packed whole and with rubbed out bits between the rounds sortof in layers, and its a little wet in the tin. I usually take a few rounds in a leather tobacco pouch with me and let them sit in the pouch overnight prior to smoking.

Definately not for the faint hearted, this tobacco can get quite strong in the deeper regions of the bowl, hence my smaller pipe size recommendation, but you owe it to your self to try this.

To be around this long The Three Nuns have to be doing something right!

Delicious - cellar lots.

Some tobaccos have attained legendary status for good or ill. I have been considering a shot at Three Nuns and was recently gifted with some (Thanks, J.) :).

The details of this tobacco have been discussed at length. I can only expand upon them.

This is elegant. It has a bit of the sweet refinement of Esoterica's Dunbar and Dorchester - but a slightly earthier taste. The topping - which is in fact very mild - is an enhancement. It does not detract from the subtle yet flavorful taste.

The perique lends a sweetness without too much zing; the cut and texture is lovely and dense.

I recommend this tobacco highly. Do I recommend spending huge amounts on tins of it? I am not sure I am going to go out and bankrupt myself to stock up - but I know I would never turn it down. Some of the C+D attempts at homage to this blend (Three Friars) are good, but not quite at the unique aged taste. Dunbar may be a favorable substitute... but there is something unique about this blend that makes at least trying it worthwhile.

Again at the recomendation of so many on ASP I purchased a tin of this weed and gave it a good try in a number of different pipes. I found nothing interesting in it at all. Please note I don't care for blends with Perique (I learned that after testing far too many tobaccos with perique ... process of elimination taught me that perique is yucky to me). The VA's do come through but not with that typical VA sweetness I would have expected leaving me wanting more true VAs. It does bite back! Ok, you've been warned ... smoke it if ya like it, but my recomendation is that you look elsewhere for a better tobac.

Well, I really tried to like the Nuns, but every time I smoke 'em, I feel like my fingertips have been whacked with a big ruler! I find the Nuns to be bitter, without any developing sweetness. The cut is neat looking, and the tin aroma is nice, but that isn't enough to counter the acrid taste. I'll give it this though, it is CONSISTENTLY acrid all the way down. If you want a good perique smoke, I would venture elswhere.

UPDATE: Below is my 2002 era review of a couple of versions of the original blend. I also tried tins of the newer Orlik version a couple of years ago, apparently shifting at some point from perique to dark fired kentucky over the years. It may not have been the same as the original (but what is), yet it was still nice.

Enters MacBaren newest Three Nuns, bless their hearts. They have expertise at coins. It feels dry enough to smoke right out of the tin, and is not hot if you take care. Doesn't seem to be scented either. The dark fired leaf tastes harsh to me if you rub out the coins at lot. At least if the coins are left mostly intact you get some sweetness from the Virginia leaf. But the taste from the dark leaf is on the bitter side or at least not very tasty to me. It also smokes stronger to me than the past versions.

The Virginia used in the mix seems straight or even raw. It has richness like the Virginia in Buter's Blended Flake or McCelland's Anniversary blend. But the mixture here has an intensity that makes me want to shy away at times. But the coins are captivating.

I smoked about 60% of my new tin. About 10 partial bowls in a new aero-billiard, and about 6-7 half to 2/3s bowls in a Wiley horn that I smoked only three nuns in over a decade ago. I sealed up the tin to let it sit or rest for a few months and then I will test it or finish it and see if I change my mind -- up or down a star.

Maybe some of you will like the extra body from the get-go. Let us know.

OLDER 2002 REVIEWS: I had the pleasure some years ago of buying an older, large tin (3 1/2 oz.) of Three Nuns and smoking it in a Ashton LX apple sovereign. When I first tried it, it was a bit too strong, but after about five-six more months of aging, it was creamy, soft, delicious, a tiny bit sweet, and just rich enough. It was as enjoyable a 6-8 weeks of puffing I every had. I'm sure the Ashton helped.

Then, I tried in vain in buying another tin, but everyplace was out. I had apparently bought one of the last tins available from a local cigar store. There were a couple of more tins at the time of my original purchase, but I didn't know what I was getting for sure. The proprietor told me of the reputation of Three Nuns, but I had to try it first. By the time I had finished the tin, some 8 months had past, and the unexpected Three Nuns treasure I had found was no more! Frantic, like losing a child or wife (well, kinda).

Then a couple of years ago I found a Canada shop that sold it in packs (not tins) on-line. It was shag cut, not curly. Nevertheless I bought two packs and smoked one in a natural Wiley horn. Not quite as smooth as I recall, but I didn't find it as horrible as some reviewers do. Just not as round or sweet, as the darker tobaccos are more detectable. (I didn't know it's not supposed to be real perique.) But after all, I was not a seasoned Three Nuns purist.

Then I recently got the real curly stuff in tins from Europe! The Original Three Nuns. I still don't find it as smooth as what I had experienced a few years ago from the large tin. It looks similar (but may have more perique in patches; it's not uniform in the disks at all), smells similar, but seems like stronger stuff.

I found if I rubbed it out or pushed or stopped a bunch of small curlies sideways in (like you can do with one or two large curls of Escudo), the smoke was much too strong with the perique having an edge. But by rubbing out one curl for the botton, and just stacking a bunch of flat curls straight down in the bowl (like a stack of coins on a table), and tamping it down just some to prevent any large air pockets, the smoke was a lot more tolerable.

It is still fairly strong to me (a 7 or 8 on a scale of 10) and is complex. I have smoked about 2 1/2 oz. now of original in a Upshall P apple. It drifts from some natural sweetness of the red virginia to the sourness of a va./perique blend. Sometimes the perique stands out more but mostly you have a full natural virginia smoke here. My guess is that the new original curly blend is quite similar to the older curly blend, but it probably has not been aged as much. So you may have to keep a tin for added months or a year or more to get a much rounder smoke, but I found I could smoke a new tin too.

You must pack carefully and tamp to avoid an edge. The room aroma is natural, very rich and strong indeed, but not bad to a smoker. My wife said it was too much (I'm sure the perique got to her). It is not an all day smoke but an evening treasure (or close to one if you puff slowly). It is mostly a dry smoke but a pipe cleaner should be run into the stem to the bowl in the last half of the smoke (it will have a black residue at the tip). But the smoke itself is not wet. The bowl is not gunky. The smoke is not hot (with care). But a very rich experience.

With age it may well be a king of va./perique blends. A milder va./perique blend is Germain's Royal Jersey Perique or Peterson's Irish Oak (as a step up in strength from Germain's). C&D's Three Friars pressed, with additional aging, is close to the rich three Nuns experience, even though it looks different.

Overall, original is recommended with care to a va./perique smoker, as a rich and complex blend. It probably is not identical to the good old "Three Nuns' days, but what is.