I hadn’t felt that feeling in a long time.” “When I first ate the Reaper, it knocked me to my knees,” Currie said. “I literally got a rush like I was taking some dope.” “I asked them to make it the hottest they could…and when I ate it, I got a rush,” he said. “I was on a search for hotter things than I could get, and this was a Vietnamese restaurant that specialized in spicy food, Currie told Wired. In fact, Ed Currie likens chili peppers to drugs. That sensation stimulates pleasure (and pain) receptors in the brain and creates an endorphin rush that chili lovers experience as nothing short of euphoria. Capsaicin doesn’t literally burn you (i.e., it doesn’t create a thermal temperature change in the body). Why? The Reaper has a much higher concentration of capsaicin, the chemical compound that registers as thermal heat in the brain. In other words, the Reaper is an astounding 10 times hotter than Habanero. The Habanero is tons tamer, averaging 100,000 to 300,000 on the Scoville scale. And in all fairness, the Habanero was the hottest back in 1999.īut compared to the Carolina Reaper? No contest, friend. And while no one has literally died from eating a Reaper, pop a whole one in your mouth…and you may wish you had.įor the uninitiated, it might seem like the Habanero is among the hottest of the hot. The Reaper pepper is named for its “tail,” which is shaped like the Grim Reaper’s scythe. “I was just trying to raise capsinoid levels in the Naga to see if I could get one of the sub-capsinoids to go higher, and we got the Carolina Reaper,” he said. That the Carolina Reaper turned out to be even hotter than the Naga Viper surprised even Ed Currie. The hottest individual Reaper pepper was measured at a scalding 2.2 million SHU. In 2013, the Guinness World Book named the Reaper the hottest chili pepper in the world- and currently holds the record, at 1,641,183 Scoville Heat Units (SHU). The Cumbria, England farmer who cultivated the Naga told The New Yorker in 2013 that it was, “…hot enough to strip paint,” at 1,382,118 SHU. He crossed a Pakistani Naga Viper chili pepper with a Caribbean La Soufriere pepper to create something with even more bite.Īs it happens, the Naga Viper chili pepper is also a Guinness World Record-holder. The Reaper hails from North Carolina, thanks to the efforts of pepper cultivator “Smokin’” Ed Currie. The Reaper chili pepper is not found in nature. In fact, Secret Aardvark found what we think is the world’s tastiest Reaper and added it to our Aardvark Reaper Smoked Hot Sauce.

That makes it the perfect combo for folks who want to bring on the heat, but still love the nuanced taste of a delicious pepper. The Reaper is also sweet, fruity, and surprisingly packed with flavor. The Carolina Reaper chili pepper is among the hottest peppers ever recorded on the Scoville Scale-and holds the current Guinness World Record as the hottest pepper in the world!īut that’s not the whole story.

Here’s Everything You Need to Know about the Carolina Reaper Chili Pepper

Carolina reaper pepper scovilles