There’s something equally comical and ominous about the names used to label the world’s hottest peppers. For instance, you’ve got the Trinidad Moruga Scorpion, the Naga Viper, and perhaps most famous of all, the Bhut Jolokia, aka the Ghost Pepper.
While these are all insanely hot peppers, the current champion when it comes to unconstrained spiciness is none other than the Carolina Reaper. As a point of comparison, consider this: The Scoville scale measures the varying levels of spiciness across different foods, with the hottest Banana pepper having a rating of 900 Scoville heat units (SHU) and the Jalapeno pepper having a potential maximum of 4,000 SHU.
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The Carolina Reaper, meanwhile?
It has an SHU ranking of 1.6 to 2.2 million, easily making it the hottest pepper known to man, a title which perhaps isn’t all surprising given that it’s a cross between a ghost pepper and a red habanero pepper. As one website notes, this bad boy was “bred for heat.”
So what happens when people try to test their mettle and bite into a Carolina Reaper? Nothing good, we can tell you that much.
In the video below, we see Sean Evans team up with Chili Klaus as they put their taste buds, sinuses, and perhaps overall health to the test. You can fast forward to about the 8-minute mark to check out the harrowing action as it plays out.
You know its serious business when the food you eat affects what you feel in your ears and your neck.
