You scoff at jalapenos.
And devour habaneros.
While casually declaring ghost peppers to be โold news.โ
You need a new challenge in the world of burning your palate out of your mouth. What you need to get your hands on is the heat of Pepper X, which was crowned by Guinness World Records as the hottest new chile pepper on Earth back in August, knocking Carolina Reapers out of the top spot.
So, what exactly is Pepper X? And how might you make it part of your fire-breathing daily diet or scorching Super Bowl party?
Weโre so glad you asked because we have answers.
What Does It Look Like?
Simply put, Pepper X is a capsicum chile pepper. It looks, well, justifiably quite evil, with the squat, inverted U.F.O. shape of the scotch bonnet pepper famous to West Africa and the Caribbean, only with an ombre of orange extending to a pale green tongue poking out from its belly. If colors serve as natureโs warning signs, this one says, โyou probably want to stay the Hell away from me.โ
How Did Such a Thing Come To Exist?
Pepper X was 10 years in the making. Which means, yes, there are people out there working to better burn your tongue off. In this case, it was a multi-millionaire madman named โSmokinโ Ed Currie, who is a chile founder, as well as the founder of, excuse us, PuckerButt Pepper Company in South Carolina. Curieโs mission in life is to chase the modern worldโs fever for hot stuff by selling hot sauces, plus wholesale pepper powder, seeds, and pepper mash as part of a small number of competitive pepper breeders.
In 2013, he released the Carolina Reaper, then the hottest chile on record. He shattered that record last year with Pepper X, which was the result of creating 100 selective hybrid plant cross pollinations annually of extremely hot chile plants in an effort to boost the capsaicin eventually found in his record-breaking new pepper.
And How Hot Is It?
Letโs put it this way: Ghost peppers, which were crowned worldโs hottest chile in 2007, are 170 times hotter than Tabasco, coming in at 1,001,304 SHU on the Scoville scale (which is used to measure the โspicinessโ of foods). Compare that to habaneroโs 100,000โ350,000 SHU. Carolina Reapers upped the heat to break records at 1.64 million SHU and are not fit for most mortals. Pepper X, on the other hand, measured 2.69 million SHU upon setting the new record, making it essentially 336.25 times hotter than the hottest jalapenos out there.
Ay! So what Happens When You Eat It?
We canโt speak from experience, not being crazy. But this is not something you eat on its own. Curie himself has said itโs โnot a very pleasant experience,โ describing the six hours of intense pain and cramps it took to get over tasting one. But he loves the flavor when itโs lengthened out in salsas, hot sauce, and sweet stuff. You can even watch Ed and a bunch of other unfortunate souls eating Pepper X on Hot Ones to see what itโs like.
Okay, Soโฆ Where Do You Find It?
Wow, you really donโt give up on this chile death wish, do you? Currently, youโre not going to find the pepper at Trader Joeโs or anything. Curie learned a hard lesson with Carolina Reapers, watching as untold numbers profited off his unpatented creation. So it will be a minute before you find whole peppers or seeds for sale anywhere, though some of questionable provenance have supposedly shown up on EBay.
Instead youโll (sorry) have to type the words โPuckerButtโ into your browser to find the 11 products Curie sells that deploy the record-holding chile in their recipes, which include a wing sauce, salsa, and taco sauce. Thereโs also the โworldโs hottestโ chocolate bars, a handful of which even come with their own Wonka-inspired โSmokin Tokensโ from the mad scientist himself. As well as a prominent โdangerโ warning on its label.
