Culinary, Social Commentary, Technology and Society, Weird

Holy Chilole

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I like me some chiles, but these people are nuts:

Mr. Bosland claims to have broken the two million Scoville mark in February 2012 with his Trinidad Moruga Scorpion. That is the same strength as police-grade pepper spray — a substance no sensible person would let travel through his digestive tract. Mr. Bosland hasn’t yet submitted paperwork to Guinness for the official record, and his claim really burns up Mr. de Wit, who insists his pepper is still the hottest. Only chemical chromatography that measures several samples for their average level of capsaicin, the chemical that gives peppers their bite, can establish a record claim. But Mr. Scott, one of the few people on Earth who has tasted both varieties, says the Moruga Scorpion is clearly hotter.

I used to grow habaneros on the patio (and I still have a container of dried ones, years old, to spice up a chili), but I hadn’t realized that they were now growing peppers in the mega-Scoville range.

4 thoughts on “Holy Chilole”

  3. Outside of Sonora, CA they have a hot sauce shop that requires you to sign a disclaimer before they allow you to purchase. A buddy I worked with brought this stoppered bottle of tar to work one day. I didn’t allow him to bring it into my office closed. When he opened it I had to threaten him with death. I never tasted it. Another guy did. We almost had to take him to the hospital.

  4. Last year I had a good crop of Bhut Jolokias, the previous record holder at around a million Scovilles. The previous year my sole Bhut Jolokia plant hadn’t fruited so I had to winter it in a closet under grow lights. Then, just as it started churning out peppers, I discovered that the Butch T and Scorpion peppers had left it in the dirt.

    Anyway, I still have lots of sun-dried Jolokias. My 14-year old neighbor of course took one to science class where one of his friends ate it whole, then tested the flow capacity of a junior-high hallway water fountain. The science teacher, a military veteran, was impressed. 🙂

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