Freshly-ground black pepper?

A few of my recipes call for freshly-ground black pepper. I can differentiate the smell of freshly-ground pepper from pepper that is pre-ground. I wasn't sure that flavor followed the same logic. So I thought to do some research. I found this article which I found very helpful.

Here's one part that I found helpful:

> THE CASE AGAINST PRE-GROUND PEPPER

> If you think you don’t like black pepper, then what you truly dislike might be the dusty vibe of months-old, pre-ground pepper. Tinned pre-ground pepper is like a dub of a dub of a dub of a cassette tape—a vague echo of its original glory.

> Grind fresh peppercorns, and the flavor will be like listening to your favorite band from 1992 digitally remastered and on a very nice stereo. In other words, wow.

This reminds me of something else I learned a while ago. Ground spices lose potency over time, but worse than that, they can also gain bad flavor. I heard this from others and I also noticed it myself (at least with respect to smell). I had a many years old container of spices and the smell was awful -- nothing like what I expected it to be.