How to set up a pepper bar

Most of us grew up with a pepper shaker at the table.

Nothing fancy, just shake it all over your food until it tastes like pepper. We didn’t think about whether it was fresh or not (it’s pepper, right?). I didn’t see a pepper mill until we visited my grandparents in Montreal when I was 10 or so and thought to ask what it was sitting on the table.

Well, we’ve come a long way since those days. It’s pepper mills all the way now. We can choose our grinds from very fine to extra coarse and everything in between. We even have electric mills to make seasoning that much easier. Mills come in all sorts of shapes and sizes, in wood, metal or a mix. Mills are part of our table setting and decor.

And now we can go one step farther, into setting up a pepper bar. That’s right, a curated selection of different peppers to enhance your cooking and eating experiences. Peugeot, an iconic mill brand from France, has been making pepper mills since 1874.

The company knows a thing or two about mills with lifetime warranties on the mechanisms. The pepper mills are perfect so it’s time to add the world of pepper to your kitchen.

The Maestro Pepper Bar comes with a compact grinder with the patented U-Select

(six pre-set settings) for the finished grind. Typically, a coarser grind releases the pepper aroma while the finer grinds bring out the spiciness. The Maestro grinder is unique in that interchangeable jars holding different peppers can be swapped out on the mill itself. No more dumping out the peppercorns and refilling the mill. Each Maestro Pepper Bar comes with three “exceptional” peppers sealed for freshness in little sachets and three jars.

The black Kampot from Cambodia is considered to have a “fruity, menthol” flavour, with an intensity of eight. Sikara is a white pepper from Madagascar, intensity six and is very “fresh.” Also from Madagascar, the Vostsiperifery is a wild pepper with “woody, fruity” notes and an intensity of five.

Included is a booklet explaining the varieties, along with a glass marker to customize the three switchable jars. In the booklet are recipes and suggestions for using the peppers to best enhance the flavour. Jars are sold as accessories along with more pepper varieties, as you build your bar.

Peugeot products are completely built in France. They are committed to sustainable practices in their manufacturing, such as using wood from certified European forests, recycling sawdust and wood chips and using only solventfree finishes.

The humanitarian side of the company actively seeks out suppliers who hire people re-entering the workforce and who hire those with disabilities.

Is it time to up your pepper game and move into something other than the shaker? The Maestro could be the answer.