No point to posting this except for my appreciation for the utterly ludicrous. Tis is from The Sun tabloid.
A NEW chilli sauce goes on sale today that is so hot it could KILL.
Ultra-concentrated “16 Million Reserve” is the hottest science can make.
The sauce is 30 times hotter than the spiciest pepper and 8,000 times more fiery than Tabasco.
Diners must sign a disclaimer recommending “protective gloves and eye wear” — but even sweating testers in safety gear were blinded by tears for 30 minutes.
Just 999 bottles of it are on sale at £105 each.
Medical experts fear it could kill asthmatics or hospitalise a user who touches a sensitive part of the body afterwards.
It is made of pure capsaicin, the chemical that makes peppers “hot”. It takes tons of peppers to make 1lb of capsaicin.
Creator Blair Lazar, 35, specialises in “extreme food” in New Jersey, US.
After trying it, he said: “It’s like having your tongue hit with a hammer. Man, it hurt.”
The sauce is named after its score on the chilli heat measure, the Scoville Unit.
Reserve scores 16 million units, while a Red Savina, the world’s spiciest pepper, measures just 570,000.
A long-time consumer of Tabasco and of wasabi, I was thrown into some kind of altered state of consciousness or something for a few days by that one Vietnamese-American salsa that isn’t Sriracha, but the same company.
I’m as much of a chile head as the next guy, but at some point (around 10000 S), there ceases to be any flavor. Hot for hot’s sake is pointless; it just so happens that there are some flavors that go well with, or are enhanced by, a little heat. I challenge anyone to find a flavor like habanero that doesn’t involve the habanero. A salsa or chili made with habaneros will have a totally different character from one made with jalapenos or serranos. And would anyone make chili using something like Hunans as the heat source? I don’t think I would.
I’ve had hot sauces made with pure capsaicin. I think it has a kind of nasty taste removed from its native context. I’ll stick with sauces made from chiles. Or just the chiles themselves.
I used to be into the “hot for hot sake” crowd. Then I bought some stuff from a chicken wing place that was so hot just opening the bottle killed nearby wildlife. Ever since then I have only liked hot when it contributes to the flavor.
y’all remember one of the “Simpsons” episodes where Marge was going to be a police-woman? One scene had Homer using her “pepper spray” on his eggs.
It would have the same effect, and probably be a heck of a lot cheaper.
I heard someone once say, “I ate a whole habanero and I thought I saw God.” It’s not quite like that, but it really does have an otherworldly effect – probably endorphins kicking in. (Anyone read Venus on the halfshell?)
The first habanero I ate was one that I grew myself. A friend gave me the plant, but I was living in a basement apartment and didn’t get enough sun for it to thrive. It made one pepper. I wasn’t sure it was gonna be the real article, but I went ahead and took a small bite from it. No hot. Evidently no seeds or ribs (the hot stuff) either, because when I popped the rest in my mouth I was really taken by surprise. I had lined up the usual flame dowsing stuff – saltines, bread, cream cheese, beer, and water. None of it did any good until I took an ice cube with a mouthful of water. Then my mouth was fine, but my lips were on fire. So there I sat for about 5 minutes, standing over the sink dribbling ice water slowly out of my mouth.
I’ve eaten a couple of whole habs since, and they’re excruciatingly hot, but nothing has compared to that one. Do not try this at home unless you’re a serious chile head or very stupid (see last sentence in previous paragraph).
The “hottest” I’ve had, (and until recently had growing in my window) is the Habanero. Less grassy in flavor than the jalapeno makes a great addition to many foods. The pepper also dries in the window quickly for year round use. Small peppers (jalapeno, serrano, habanero, etc) are easy to grow in a sunny window, and all you need is the seeds from a ripe pepper you buy in the store. Environment has a lot to do with it’s spice leval and two peppers from the same pland can even be different in taste.
As my roommate found out, after chopping the pepper do not pick your nose.
Tha habanero is probably the hottest traditional chile pepper. There’s a little bullet-shaped Thai pepper that packs quite a wallop, too. There have been some designer hot peppers (so-called ssuperchiles) developed in the last couple of decades that are somewhat hotter than any of the traditional chiles (at the expense of flavor IMO). The red savina, cited above, is one of these. Hotness is a logarithmic scale measured in Scoville units. The habanero comes in at about 2-300 thousand, so the savina cited above at 570k, while having twice the capsaicin, is apparently just a little hotter. The pure capsaicin would apparently be about 3.5 or so times as hot. (I find this a bit surprising.)
Been there, done that. Puts a whole new meaning to the phrase, “put a little spice in your life!”
I’ve always thought it would be funny to hang a sign that said, “employees must wash their hands before using to the lavatory” in the kitchen of a Mexican (or Indian, etc.,) restaraunt…
I remember that episode. Homer said, “One shot and you’re south of the border.” When he ate the eggs, he said, “Mmmm, incapacitating.”
Once, I was eating a relatively mild pepper and my eye itched and I rubbed it without thinking. It started to sting, so I rubbed it again. Then, I realized my mistakes.
Tony
I have heard that if you add sugar to fresh-ground/grated horse radish it increases the heat many many times. Any one ever try this?
I was once making a dobule batch of chile had to chop up about 20 jalapenos, (devaining and de-seeding them) I figured it would just be faster using my fingers to pop this stuff out, (I mean, come on… they’re just jalapenos!) My thumbs and forefingers burned for hours that night. Lickily I didn’t touch any “sensitive” parts until my hands were well washed. Still lift my fingers burning tho…
