Peter Buchanan-Smith is relaunching the company he founded in 2009. The axe evangelist shares the key elements of his work routine. Plus:

• WhistlePig: The outspoken founder isn’t done with whiskey.
• German sausage styles: Just in time for Oktoberfest.

How I Work: Best Made’s Peter Buchanan-Smith Swears by Pencils, Peloton and a Riding Lawn Mower

This is How I Work, a series where founders, CEOs and leaders share the essentials that help them do what they do, from their morning routines to productivity tools. 

For a few years there it looked like Peter Buchanan-Smith, the founder of Best Made Company, was going to ride off into the sunset. Or what riding off into the sunset looks like for a New York City creative luminary: he left his company in 2019 and moved upstate to a “tiny little pastoral village.” He wrote a book. Meanwhile, Best Made became a sub-brand under a publicly traded company. And that was that.

Then, Buchanan-Smith returned — not to NYC, but to Best Made. In November 2023, he announced that he had quietly bought Best Made back with plans “to create something new, unexpected, and hopefully more relevant [than] ever.” On Wednesday, almost a year after that Instagram post, the 52-year-old revealed the flagship product leading the first phase of the company’s renaissance: Old Gold No. 1, a gorgeous hand-forged axe that will be sold in a limited edition of 100 for $450 a piece. It won’t go on sale until September 25, but other inaugural offerings, like a relaunch patch and cloth-bound notebooks, are available now, with more gear on the way.

We caught up with Buchanan-Smith to talk about the new foundations of Best Made, the ins and outs of his work routine from his home office in the Catskills, and why a riding lawnmower is one key to his creativity.

Yesterday, we asked you what you feel like you don't get enough of these days. You said:

• Learning new skills. I rarely seek out new pursuits (14%)
• Socialization. I wish I spent more time with others. (17%)
• Sleep. I hardly ever get eight hours. (33%)
• Exercise. I definitely don't move as much as I should. (led by a very small margin, at 34%)

Raj Bhakta’s Hogsworth Is a Genre-Bending Spirits Blend

When Raj Peter Bhakta founded WhistlePig in 2007, American rye whiskey was considered little more than an inexpensive cocktail base that worked well in spirit-forward cocktails. When he parted ways with WhistlePig 11 years later, he was widely credited with having ignited a rye whiskey renaissance, with bottles of WhistlePig’s highly allocated Boss Hog expression trading for thousands of dollars on the secondary market. Never mind that Bhakta’s departure from WhistlePig was neither voluntary nor amicable (he was forcibly bought out by his investors). Bhakta had a vision, a flair for splashy promotion and a solid product that — when given the right push — redefined rye whiskey as a premium sipping spirit.

If his latest project is any indication, Bhakta isn’t yet done creating category-defining spirits — or with pigs, for that matter.

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A Beginner’s Guide to German Sausages

You don’t need to know a whole lot about Germany to know that the country takes its sausages very seriously. But just how seriously is another thing entirely.

Of course, you can find the real deal here in the States if you know what to look for. With that in mind, we asked Jeremy Schaller, the third-generation owner of New York City’s famed Schaller & Weber butcher shop, to walk us through some of the most popular types of German sausages (and, yes, one’s technically Austrian). He gave us the nitty gritty on what they’re made of, how they’re traditionally prepared and what side dishes you can pair them with, just in time for you to get your own at-home Oktoberfest celebration in under the wire.