Carolina Reaper

From Pepperscale.com...

The Carolina Reaper is the current official hottest pepper in the world. How hot? With a heat range from 1,400,000 to 2,200,000 Scoville heat units, the Reaper is hotter than many defensive pepper sprays and it dwarfs many of the other super-hots among the hottest chilies.

Smokin’ Ed Currie is the grower of this super hot chili. His PuckerButt Pepper Company based in South Carolina developed the reaper as a hybrid of a red habanero strain and a Naja Viper pepper – another pepper that was once the hottest pepper in the world. He was seeking to develop a sweet pepper with a little more punch. What he got was record-breaking. Notably, Smokin’ Ed and PuckerButt are also the cultivators behind the Pepper X and the Apollo pepper, the Reaper’s most-notable challengers for the throne.

Ed Currie’s pepper-growing career has an amazing back story. He began growing peppers because of his interest in the health benefits of hot peppers, especially in combating diseases. His family had a history of cancer, and, to be as preventative as possible, he began researching communities with low levels of disease. He noted that there was something in common among these communities: hot peppers were a staple of their diets. This sparked a passion that’s led to something pretty special, and Ed has often donated his chili peppers for cancer research.

A fun fact: The Carolina Reaper went by a much less potent name during its cultivation and development from 2011 until 2013: HP22B. This is a simply an acronym covering important plant details for Ed the grower – Higher Power, pot number 22, plant B.

Carolina Reaper fast facts