Flathead Pepper Mill by Jens Quistgaard (Two Available)

The Flathead design gets its name from its similarity to a flathead screwdriver. A tapered cylinder is carved away to create a flat blade at the top of this mill. The shapes of The Flathead are less expressive than most JHQ peppermills, featuring an almost austere, rectilinear overall profile. This mill is a part of the Screwdriver family of shapes.

Salt is loaded via two side plugs. We should note that all other JHQ designs that use plugs have either one salt plug or four side plugs, two each for loading salt and pepper. In the Flathead, pepper is loaded via the base of the mill, using the generational varieties of pepper-loading mechanisms. The top surface of the flathead blade has three salt holes. The grinder rotation point is between the two small donut shapes in the middle of the mill.

The Flathead design exists with most of the generations of grinder types: the all-metal grinder, all-plastic Danish grinders, and the subsequent modern production. The design appears unchanged until production moved to Asia, after which slight modifications begin to be noticeable. Most notably, the diameter of the two donuts around the grinder rotation point grows, and all the formerly sharp edges of this mill become eased.

In 2009, Dansk restarted production on eight Quistgaard peppermills. The mills were made from acacia wood, produced with adjustable ceramic grinders, and heavily modified from Quistgaard’s original designs. The mills gained human names: Jack, Audrey, Jasper, Lisbet, Henrik, Rosie, Jane, and Hank - Four Donut’s new pseudonym. As far as we know, JHQ did not name his peppermill designs. Our best guess is that the names were chosen to give the objects a greater sense of affability and Scandinavian character. While many online sources have tightly coupled these names to the designs, we should stress that there is absolutely no evidence that any mills prior to 2009 should be attributed with human names.