Wow, these are beautiful. My dad used to make these as a sort of hobby (he liked any excuse to hop on the lathe, and they made great gifts; you don't realize how awful the ones in big box stores are until someone makes you a proper one). He'll love to see this.
It didn't occur to me that there'd be such an extensive collection of something seemingly so obscure, yet here we are. It seems like this exists for everything out there.
It's very nostalgic in a way. Though my dad's were different, the dark, solid wood and geometric shapes bring me back to my childhood.
These are handsome, but my real question is: how's the mechanism? Of the half dozen or so pepper mills I've owned, half of them kind of sucked from the get-go (the current one grinds ok, but doesn't feed fresh peppercorns without a regular shake), and the other half broke in a couple years (the last one the adjustment mechanism jammed up). I don't feel like I'm an unreasonably aggressive pepper grinder, nor do I think I use an abnormally large amount of pepper. Hell, I'd only call myself a halfway decent home cook.
In related news: does anyone want to recommend a decent commercial, easily available option? Not looking to spend a fortune, but would be willing to spend enough to have one that'll last another 40-50 years.
I have gone through several mills and heard about the Mankitchen on HN a while back. It's expensive but it's the best pepper mill I have ever used.
https://mannkitchen.eu/products/the-original-pepper-cannon-p...
I also heard about this mill on HN and can also say it’s by far the best peppermill I’ve ever used. It is rock solid. I also bought the salt mill.
The price is insane, on par with the most expensive espresso hand grinders.
I have two of "The Original Greek Pepper Mill" - it's an 8" tall copper thing. It's been amazing. Why do I have two of them, you ask? I kept my mom's after she passed; it was probably 30 years old already.
If you want to grind a ton of pepper with fine grind control, you could also use one of the modern generations of manual coffee grinders, like the MHW-3Bomber Blade R3 or the cheaper TIMEMORE knockoff. They have excellent and fast and precise grind mechanisms. I'm not sure about the MHW but the timemore will stand alone with the bottom of so you can use it like you'd use a coffee grinder, or attach the grinds cup if you want to crank out a lot.
(I'm using an older, cheaper manual coffee grinder as my sichuan peppercorn grinder and it's solid for that but I do prefer the greek mill from an aesthetic perspective -- and it's so dang solid.)
Peugeot is the gold standard. The traditional hourglass shape is around $40-50 for the normal-sized version, and they have a lot of other modern designs. A lot of competing brands buy the internal mechanism from Peugeot.
(If you're curious about the name: Yes, it was originally the same company as the Peugeot car/motorcycle company. It was spun out into a separate company at some point, but still owned by the descendants of the original Peugeot family.)
Didn’t have great experiences with peugeot grinders.
Interesting! My Peugeots have lasted 20 years and are still going strong. Maybe they've been enshittified since then.
I have the metal ones, just looked and I bought them in March 2018 and they’re fantastic - definitely not enshittified. I particularly like the adjustable grind size!
Mannkitchen Pepper Cannon. I absolutely adore this device and have bought a few as friends for discerning cooks and mechanical gadget lovers. Build quality is utterly fantastic and the quality of the grind is excellent. Most importantly the ability for it to grind copious amounts of pepper with minimal input is unmatched. I tried just about all the other ones recommended on various forums but none match up, not even close. Yeah it's $200 but oh man is it nice.
No idea if it'll last 40-50 years, but I've used this probably about 10(?), and it's been great. You do need a small funnel to fill it though. It's not the standard size or functionality, but I've discovered I actually prefer this ratchet style. (It's fun!)
https://www.surlatable.com/product/sur-la-table-ratchet-mill...
Peugeot used to be the best but apparently have degraded quality over the years.
Zassenhaus and Zwilling are both German options of the same quality or better.
These are well regarded, and I don’t have any complaints about mine (other than the style is basic black): https://www.unicornmills.org/
Mechanism is solid. More aggressive than your typical grinder, but maybe not as to the same degree as a Pepper Cannon.
I would just call them to order though.
We recently bought the "Trudeau Seville Pepper Mill, 6-Inch". It was quire inexpensive, has an all metal mechanism, and does a coarse grind that my wife likes. We've used it daily for a couple years now and it's been flawless.
I've got an OXO that has worked great since I bought it in 2014. It's an ugly piece of white plastic, but it's efficient, unfussy, ergonomic, and adjustable.
I've got this OXO version and it has worked great too. The singular down-side being that its rubbery bottom tends to grip too tightly to surfaces so it falls over instead of sliding.
This makes sense due to that end being the gripped side during use.
https://amzn.com/dp/B08DL86ZCQ
I also own the aforementioned Unicorn. I use it for "bulk black pepper" grinding and use this model for finer grinds of white and green pepper.
I've been using a Peugeot 23461 for 5 years of near daily cooking with no issues. Jut finished making a bacon, egg, and cheese sandwich with some aggressive peppering with it.
It seems to list the mechanism on each model. A bunch of them seem to use Peugeot for the mechanism and I have a such branded grinder that seems to hold up really well..
I bought the cheapest coffee grinder I could find at the grocery store. Does a fantastic job. I usually grind up about a half cup at a time.
I use a coffee grinder with a hand crank.
does anyone want to recommend a decent commercial, easily available option?
I went looking for a mill for white pepper recently. I've a 50 year old Danish mill I'd love to repair, but that's a project for another day. Serious Eats seems to like the Kuhn Rikon ones but none of the long term reviews on the KR site are positive. Peugeot naysayers seem to be popping up more frequently, and for that price I'd expect better. Each seems to attract a few specific types of complaints which to me seems to lend a bit of credibility.
In any case, my new Fletcher's Mill grinder just showed up today and superficially it looks like they've only made small changes. The adjustment mechanism is the same and similar to the classic Peugeot mechanism. I've not taken it apart, but I believe the grinding mechanism is the same two stage unit as my old one.
https://web.archive.org/web/20241228230216/http://quistgaard...
Site wouldn't load for me, here's an archive version
When the article said:
These peppermills, otherwise known as “table seasoners”, evoke tiny household sculptures, powerful individually, but most compelling when grouped and viewed in sets.
Is that some kind of direct translation from Danish, the "table seasoners" part? I'm certainly not a native speaker of English, but that was a term I've never heard before ... I tried googling it but didn't find much, which is why I ask.
In modern Danish it is "saltkværn" (salt mill) and "peberkværn" (peber mill).
I've never heard that term before (native english speaker)
table salt, but not table pepper or table seasoners
> otherwise known as “table seasoners”
...to the author, who is now trying to make "table seasoner" happen by implying that everyone who is anyone is saying it.
But can they sing? https://teenage.engineering/products/choir
The pepper grinders at the gift shoppe at Seattle's Space Needle are terrible. Someone like this designer needs to make a GOOD Space Needle pepper grinder with a good (Peugeot) mechanism!
(I recall a sombrero-roofed observation tower at the I-95 South of the Border rest stop/tourist trap in South Carolina called the Spice Needle)
As an avid fan of Star Control, I can't help but love the Druuge model, "His reference for this mill’s shape comes from similarly shaped alien ships in a video game called Star Control."
It was sort of a thing for southern California machinists to start peppermill companies, or at least two. I have a vintage William Bounds one marked "made on the third planet from the sun" and I used to have an Olde Thompson I think.
I clicked on the article on a lark, and I was stunned? certainly excited to see the "Acorn" model there: my father's had one of those for... well, as long as I can remember. Maybe near 50 years now?
Still beautiful in teak.
Gorgeous pepper mills. The website breaks the back button, however.
Not for me.