My interest in hot peppers began about 25 years ago. A friend
from Hondo, Texas, well known for his hot sauces and salsas, asked
if I would grow him some habanero peppers.
He handed me some seeds, and as the plants grew up and flourish
-ed and produced an amazingly bountiful crop, I started to under-
stand just how much fun growing these plants could be. Before long
I found myself on the road to growing the hottest peppers I could find.
The heat measurement of peppers is referred to in Scoville units.
Measured now with high-performance liquid chromatography, these
units of heat intensity were originally formulated by the American
pharmacist Wilber Scoville to measure the level of pure capsaicin
within hot peppers.
Sweet peppers scored zero on the Scoville scale, while a jalapeño
might score 3,000 Scovilles – meaning it would have to be diluted
3,000 times till no heat was detected. Some of our favorite peppers
score as follows:
In the 1,000 to 3,000 range we have Anaheims (New Mexico chilis)
and poblanos. From 3,000 to 10,000 we have jalapeños. Above
10,000 we have serranos, tabascos, cayennes, Thai, and chili pequins.
There is then a large gap, and we find the orange habaneros scor-
ing around the 200,000 Scoville units. It was here that I learned of
the chocolate and red Caribbean variety that were easy to grow and
twice as hot as the standard orange.
Then along comes the red and yellow scotch bonnets scoring a
whopping 400,000 Scovilles.
Within the last 4 years a ghost pepper from Bangladesh and India
has found its way to my door. Also called bhut jolokia or naga
pepper, these devils score 1,000,000 on the Scoville scale. Danger-
ous I’d say. Handle with care!
This year an even hotter pepper has come along. Known as the
Trinidad scorpion, it has the sting of 1,400,000 Scovilles.
I thought that was about as hot as you could get until I heard of
Australian hybridizer Butch Taylor. He has produced a Trinidad
Scorpion called the Butch T. This pepper is hitting the 2,000,000
mark on the Scoville scale… and should hold the record for at
least a little while as the hottest pepper on the planet.
I don’t know what’s next but I’m pretty sure a hotter pepper is on
the horizon. I can imagine what they will call it. Meanwhile I am
happy to report that my Trinidad Scorpion Butch T peppers are up
and smiling at the sunshine. Happy gardening everyone! ❦
