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Unicorn magnum pepper mill
Unicorn magnum pepper mill – The Unicorn Magnum Plus Pepper Mill is a popular and very good option for a pepper grinder, and I would highly recommend it. Since Cook’s Illustrated gave it their thumbs up, it is often the go-to product for foodies, and there is no doubt that the mill does a very good job grinding pepper. It will get the grinding done fast and with ease, and this was the first pepper mill I’ve had that I loved using.
With that said, it is not a perfect product. It can be a messy grinder, and if not shaken thoroughly, residual ground corns will fall out of the bottom quite liberally, and after a short time you will notice your cupboard or counter littered with pepper.
Design
The smaller grinders have a little plate that fits under it, but I find this a bit annoying as I never wanted to keep track of a dish in addition to the grinder. A pepper grinder moves around the kitchen: where you prep, at the stove, and at the table for finishing. I just don’t find it realistic to always place it back on the tray unless your kitchen is smaller and the mill is always within arms reach. And if more than one person is cooking, the likelihood of the tray ‘following’ the grinder is even smaller.
Unicorn magnum pepper mill – pros and cons
Another problem was that the opening where you load the peppercorns comes open very easily during grinding. After a while I became used to it, and it rarely opened, but when others used my grinder, the hole often became exposed. Just look at the picture. If any part of your hand overlaps on the middle loading portion that you slide to open, and you turn the top, it will also slide the the loading hole open too. This isn’t a problem if you notice it and close it, or the pepper grinder doesn’t fall over, but a couple times that did happen.
Additionally, while the loading hole does allow quick filling of the grinder, I didn’t find the side hole that easy to use when filling, and if you try to do it without a funnel of some sort, you can spill peppercorns. This isn’t a big deal in my opinion, but with some top-loading grinders it is easier to fill up than the Unicorn.
All in all, despite these minor flaws, I loved using this pepper mill and it ground pepper very quickly. A sign of something working is using it, and this grinder I definitely used a lot. Special Offer here.
Top of the top
The Unicorn Pepper Mill is good. Really good. But part of what makes it shine so brightly is how bad the competition is. Pepper mills (aka pepper grinders) rank just behind knives as primary causes of horrific kitchen accidents, according to an unofficial study that occurred in my life experience. I have lost the top screws to other pepper mills in the middle of restaurant service and watched them roll to a stop several feet behind 500 degree ovens. I have had them fall apart in my hands and dump hundreds of peppercorns into a cauldron of soup and then had to fish every single one out. I have also seen some genuine crimes against design out there that wouldn’t belong at the bottom of a kitchen drawer, let alone out in plain sight on a countertop.
Like meeting someone nice and sane after dating a series of crazies, the Unicorn, made by Tom David, Inc on Nantucket Island of all places (but using Italian-built grinding mechanisms), earns its name by actually being as special as you hope it will be. It is sleek, black or white, and understated, with an oversized opening for adding peppercorns that twists closed seamlessly. The only screw is on the bottom, used for adjusting the grind size, and is easy to twist by hand and yet never seems to loosen, the way some grinders start out making pepper dust but after a day’s grind are dropping out whole peppercorns onto your salad.