Cooking.com Unicorn Magnum Plus Pepper Mill

Pros: Fast, well built, and has an excellent rep among food professionals.
Cons: Not one.

If you've ever asked yourself why grinding a half teaspoon of pepper should require more energy than hand-churning ten pounds of butter, I feel for you. I asked myself the same question for thirty years.

The problem is this, and only this:...

Pros: Holds lots of pepper, large output, adjustable grind.
Cons: Can open accidentally, somewhat hard to fill, expensive at around $45.

You would think that after all this time, a pepper mill that actually works would be easy to find. It isn't. I went through many, many mills. None of them had much output. None of them really allowed me to adjust the grind to anything other than ...

Pros: Fast grind, easy fill, easy grind adjust
Cons: None I can think of!

This might seem to some to be a trivial item to write an exhaustive review about, but having used the Mag+ for about 3 weeks now - it is da bomb!

I am an ardent Cooks Illustrated/America's Test Kitchen fan, so ordered the Unicorn Magnum Plus...

Pros: Cranks out a generous amount of fresh pepper with each turn; solidly built.
Cons: Plasticky body is less elegant and shows finger and hand prints.

Cook's Illustrated got it right again with their rating of "top pepper mill" for this product. As recommended, it surely cranks out relatively lots of pepper with each turn of the dial and is solidly built to last! While the utility and grinding ...

Pros: worked at first
Cons: does not work

I had one and it worked fine for 6 weeks now it sits in a drawer. The problem with many pepper mills is they do not last

Pros: everything a peppermill should be.
Cons: none

as a professional cook, i've gone through many peppermills. none can hold a candle to the quality of the magnum. every cook in the kitchen uses our one magnum. it delivers so much pepper at one time that finishing a dish requires a quarter of a turn, compared to 5 or 6 grinds of other mills. it can easily be filled on the fly and once you set the grind, it stays until you adjust it again. i can't imagine ever using another mill.

Pros: Grinds pepper like mad. Hold a lot. Looks cool.
Cons: None.

For something as important as pepper there are a lot of lousy mills out there. I know, I've owned most of them.
I love to cook. I love pepper. When I saw an pepper grinder article (in New York Times? can't remember where) I clipped it & asked my wife for it for Christmas then promptly forgot about it. Months later I found a Magnum Plus under the tree.

Well, this thing works!

My wife loves the look of it & calls it the Big Johnson. The look of the thing isn't too important to me. Here 's my take based on my 4 years of using it.

Holds: Huge amount. A cup of pepper at least.

Changing the Grind: A screw on the bottom
the mill for adjusting the grind. I keep it on
coarse but switch to fine for pasta. Easy to
switch back and forth. It holds the grind you put it
on.

Output: This thing delivers the goods.


The company that makes the Magnum Plus (Tom David, Inc) has a website, peppergun.com, and has other cool grinders.

Pros: It's experience is like a storm cloud pouring down black pepper rain.
Cons: I had to complain about every grinder til I bought this one.

Honestly for the price, not having used one before, I was worried about making the investment.  But after reading a lot of reviews, I felt as though I'd never experienced this type of grind. After owning it, I would have spent twice as much, had I seen one in action in person.  I have none of the complaints others have had.  If you love pepper and you're not an idiot, it's perfect.  It holds a massive 4 oz of corns.  If you wanted to, you could probably grind an ounce per minute, or less without getting a cramp.  There is nothing slight when it comes to this grinder.  On a giant chess board, this grinder would be the queen.  All other grinders have met their checkmate.