Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Consider the lowly pepper mill, charged with a function so pedestrian one might imagine its design would have been perfected centuries ago. Ask for pepper in a restaurant and most likely a waiter, not your waiter but a special waiter, will arrive with something resembling a baseball bat which he or she waves menacingly over your plate until at last you cry, "Uncle". Home mills are almost invariably short and bulbous, sporting jaunty S-shaped brass cranks. Routinely made of wood specially designed to attract and retain kitchen grime, they resemble something turned on a lathe by a moderately talented 6th-grader in a remedial shop class. With the capacity of 7.7 peppercorns, inserted with tweezers through an almost inaccessible door, these mills manage to generate a thin film of pepper dust before jamming completely. The advent of industrial chic ushered in the stainless steel equivalent. More attractive and expensive than their predecessors, they matched them pound for pound where it counts, uselessness. The arrival of the Unicorn Magnum Plus Pepper Mill heralds the end of the quest for pepper mill perfection. Like a prizefighter surveying his opponent on the canvas, it grinds rock-hard peppercorns into flakes effortlessly, as if to say, "Is that all you've got for me?" Filling is fast, simple, and intuitive while capacity is nothing short of cavernous. Once topped-off you're set for a good long while, perhaps one full political administration, or until the complete collapse of civilization, whichever comes first. Great grip, easy to use, adjustable grind that delivers consistently. Design criticisms, predicated on materials used rather than its exemplary good looks, are misguided. The days when the word "plastic" was synonymous with "cheap" are long gone. For many design engineers, plastic is the premier material, specified by choice, not as a fallback position. Indeed, this exceptional mill is easy to use, clean, and maintain specifically because the materials used enabled its design. Definitely worth it.