Wine Bottle Pepper Mills

What could be more fun than a premium pepper mill styled after a wine bottle?

Figured Maple, American Chestnut, and Curly Cherry Mills

Ted patterned his design for a 12″ mill on a Bogle wine bottle, reducing it to 7/8 scale to accommodate the pepper mill mechanism.

Figured Hard Maple Mill is a 7/8-Scale Replica

Ted turns the bottle mills out a single piece of wood chosen for its elegant figuring or grain pattern.  He has used figured hard maple, cherry, quilted maple, American chestnut, and curly cherry, all with beautiful results.

You might be thinking “My goodness, that mill would hold a lot of peppercorns.”  Although it does hold plenty, the opening is really only about 1” in diameter extending from the top of the bottle to the base.

Ted fashions the faux corkscrew tops out of contrasting woods that complement the bottle portion of the mill.

Corkscrew-Style Tops for New Mills

Ted applies at least a dozen coats of durable polyurethane finish to the mills, and perhaps more depending on the type of wood that was used.  Each coat has to dry thoroughly before he can sand it by hand using 600 grit wet sandpaper.  The mill then has to dry so that the next coat of finish can be applied and the process repeated.  It takes longer for Ted to apply the coats of finish to a mill than it does for him to select and size the wood, turn the mill, and turn the corkscrew top.

After the final coat of finish has been applied, Ted uses a three-step buffing and waxing process.

Buffing a Spalted Hard Maple Mill on the Lathe

The final step in the process of creating a wine bottle pepper mill is to incorporate the grinding mechanism.

Premium Grinding Mechanism for New Mill

The wine bottle pepper mills fill from the top.  Removing the top screw allows the corkscrew and lower bottle sections to separate.   Simply pour in the peppercorns and re-attach the top.  That same screw adjusts the coarseness of the grind.

In addition to the figured hard maple mill available in the Store we generally have one or more mills available at Ptarmigan Arts in Homer, Alaska. Ted is also available to create a custom mill using woods of your own choosing.