Pepper Expert Scorches His Own Guinness Book Heat Record [View all]

[stopdiggin]

Ed Currie, the South Carolina hot pepper expert who crossbred and grew the Carolina Reaper that’s hotter than most pepper sprays police use to subdue unruly criminals, has broken his own world record with a pepper that’s three times hotter.

Pepper X was publicly named the hottest pepper in the world on Oct. 9 by the Guinness Book of World Records, beating out the Reaper in Currie’s decade long hunt to perfect a pepper that he says provides “immediate, brutal heat.”

Heat in peppers is measured in Scoville Heat Units. Zero is bland, and a regular jalapeno pepper registers about 5,000 units. A habanero, the record-holder about 25 years ago, typically tops 100,000. The Guinness Book of World Records lists the Carolina Reaper at 1.64 million units.

Pepper X’s record is an average of 2.69 million units. By comparison, pepper spray commonly holstered by police is around 1.6 million units. Bear spray advertises at 2.2 million units.

Pepper X has been in the works since Currie last set the hottest pepper record in 2013 with the Carolina Reaper, a bright red knobby fruit with what aficionados call a scorpion tail. The goal was to offer an extremely hot pepper flavored with sweetness.

Pepper X is greenish-yellow, doesn’t have the same shelf appeal and carries an earthy flavor once its heat is delivered. It’s a crossbreed of a Carolina Reaper and what Currie mysteriously classifies as a “pepper that a friend of mine sent me from Michigan that was brutally hot.”

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/ap-us-worlds-hottest-pepper_n_652ea5ffe4b00565b6219bfd

(and for the 'record' - terrible pun - I think anyone that is within 20 yards of this kind of insane heat - is utterly and completely out of their tree!)