Pepper Master Ed Currie Tastes The Hottest Peppers From 11 Countries

I'm Smoking Ed Currie.

I'm a professional hot sauce maker and pepper breeder

and today we're gonna be trying the hottest peppers

from different countries all around the world.

We're gonna find the world's mildest

and the world's wildest.

Let's eat some peppers.

[upbeat music]

Peach ghost,

it originated in Sri Lanka.

The pepper is part of the Jolokia family

which is where the ghost peppers come from.

The heat range on it is very, very low.

It's from about 300,000 to about 400,000.

Even though I say it's not a very hot pepper.

If you are comparing it to say a jalapeno

at three to 5,000 Scoville heat units,

300,000 Scoville heat units is a big jump.

When you see a ghost pepper,

most of the heat is all inside.

Up here where the pith is is gonna be the hottest part.

Down here at the bottom is gonna be the most flavorful part.

So, if you cut at the bottom to give it a taste,

it'll give you an idea of what you wanna pair this with.

Actually that's a very good pepper.

I like pairing it with curries,

so that you get the flavor of the pepper

but it doesn't overpower the other flavors in the curry,

even though it's hot, over a Habanero hot

it's got a lot of flavor and I'm gonna have to put it

on the mild side and very flavorful.

If we weren't filming all day

I'd be eating it the rest of it.

But we have more peppers to try.

Yellow scorpion, all scorpion peppers come

from the Caribbean, however

they've been moved all over the world.

This particular pepper was bred by a breeder in Italy.

The scorpions are known for their little tail.

There's three different particular lobes.

I'm gonna cut the tail off of this one.

The scorpions hit me on the side

of the mouth underneath my tongue too.

The heat on this well over a million Scoville heat units.

I don't know if you can see my eyes watered right away.

I'm getting a little drip in my nose

and it's kind of catching me in the throat.

Fantastic heat, as far as flavor goes for me.

Yeah, it tastes horrible.

No floral tones to it.

It doesn't have any sweetness to it.

It just tastes like heat.

We dry them, it gives it a good kick

and the flavor comes out a lot sweeter than if it's raw.

So I'm gonna put this pepper down here.

Very little flavor at all, but it is very hot

so I'm gonna call it a hot mess.

Let's try some more Peppers.

Chocolate Scorpion is said to originate on Trinidad.

However, this particular version comes

from the island of St. Vincent, thought to be one

of the hottest peppers in the world

but in testing they usually come out around 1.2-1.3 million.

Now chocolate peppers do not have any chocolate in it.

A lot of people make that mistake.

There's a high tannin content in chocolate peppers.

Those bumps in the wrinkles

in the skin are usually indicative

that this pepper is gonna hurt.

Now the heat comes on right away.

The tannins in the chocolate tend to offset that bitterness

and give it a totally different fruity flavor.

Instead of that bitter side like we got

with the yellow scorpion, I'm getting that fruity side.

It's staying up in the front

of my mouth and up in my olfactories.

I love pairing chocolate peppers with sweet stuff.

Mix it all together and marinate a nice steak in it.

It is delicious.

[Ed coughing]

However, it is hot.

So I'm gonna put that one right up here.

It's extremely spicy.

It's a hot and fruity blast

'cause you get hit immediately with that heat.

Let's move on to the next pepper.

Orange Madame Jeanette from Suriname.

A lot of people who can take Habanero heat

this is the pepper for you.

It's got a really high content of sugar.

They tend to have a very long seed pocket in them

so there's not very many places

的辣椒没有热量。

If you want that heat and you don't mind that bitterness

you can just drop the whole pepper in.

When you cut this pepper, the smell that comes

out is like, oh, it's almost like a bell pepper.

This isn't hot at all

but when you eat it, you know, oh crap, I ate something hot.

It's almost a citrusy tone.

I tend to use this in Asian dishes

because I don't like using the little red peppers.

I like something that has a lot more heat to it

but kind of the same flavor profile

on a good lobster roll or a California roll.

This is the perfect pepper to have.

Not hot at all, but the flavor is amazing.

I'm gonna put this up here

as one of my favorite cooking peppers.

I'm gonna just say this one's good eats.

Yellow Naga from Pakistan.

Nagas and Jolokias are cousins.

It's kinda like saying a golden delicious

and a honey crisp apple, same kind of flavor.

The heat on it, you know

I would say about 800,000 Scoville heat units

maybe a little bit higher depending on how you grow them.

So even though on average it is not nearly one

of the hottest in the world, it's still a super hot pepper

and should be handled with care.

Boom, right away, sweet flavor

just like with the Madame Jeanette.

But you can feel it building up in the back of your throat.

This one has a little bit of that earthy tone to it.

It needs something vibrant to pick it up.

The sweetness went away pretty quickly

and became more of a ghosty taste to it.

So I'm gonna put this right in the middle.

It's not a less flavorful pepper

it's not a more flavorful pepper.

You definitely need to add something that'll pull

up the flavor.

For those who wanna experiment with heat

this is a good pepper to experiment with.

This is all around fun.

Red Apocalypse all the way over the pond from England.

The apocalypse is a version of the scorpion pepper.

It is delicious.

It's got a very big pocket at the bottom.

It packs a lot of heat

because that capsaicin producing membrane has come

down all the way through that pocket.

This is brutal.

Excuse me, this is brutal, huh?

That might have been a mistake

这是probably a mistake to cut some more

but it is one of my favorite tasting peppers.

That sweetness that comes through is amazing.

I use this sometimes in my own hot sauce

at home when I'm making a small batch just for myself.

So I love this on fish

a little more flavorful and a little less heat.

It's probably one of the best all around peppers.

黄色的刚果,每个人都知道刚果布朗Africa.

This is the yellow Congo.

Very rare to find in the USA.

The heat on it is about 600,000 Scoville heat units.

This yellow Congo is a lot hotter

than the brown and that's abnormal for peppers.

It really doesn't matter where you cut a piece

of this pepper.

It's gonna be hot

because that seed pocket goes from the top to the bottom.

All that producing membrane is everywhere

so instantly it explodes with heat

but that heat only lasts for minute.

You know, it just boom, boom, boom and it's gone.

Then you're left with the flavor of the pepper.

I am having fun and this is a good pepper.

This is a little bit milder and a little less wilder.

Wow, that one got caught right here.

Let's do the next one.

Chocolate X from parts unknown USA.

Pepper X is a pepper that I crossbred.

Turned out to be a really, really hot pepper.

It also turned out to be a really

really good pepper for cooking, especially in hot sauces.

It's full of bumps and those bumps again are indicative

of the pepper being really hot.

It almost looks green inside where all

that capsaicin producing material is.

My hands are gonna be hot.

Just from touching this,

I wouldn't recommend doing what I do and doing this

without gloves 'cause if you touch something higher

you touch something low, you're gonna be in a lot of pain.

One of the things that happens

with peppers is your brain perceives

through a nerve receptor that only mammals have.

I can feel in my body literally everything going

through my system with this pepper.

My hands are tingling, my arms are tingling.

I feel like I'm getting that rush

from the dopamine 'cause there's such a high concentration

of capsaicin in this one.

It's getting me hot.

This is the point in eating peppers where you see

on those videos online that fight or flight

some people just freak out

and they're like, ah, and they gotta run for water

and they chug stuff and they get sick.

Right now my tongue is on fire.

Holy smokes.

You okay? Yeah, yeah.

It is brutal hot.

This one has good flavor and good heat.

They tend to overpower things so you need a

really good hearty dish.

I've used it in lasagnas before.

It is the hottest pepper that's here

but definitely not the most flavorful

that we've tried so far.

If you wanna do something that's stupid

this is the one to cook with with a capital T.

Red Ghost pepper or the Jolokia Pepper from India.

This one happens to be the variety called bhut Jolokia.

At one time this was considered the world record pepper.

They really come in six to 700,000 in Scoville heat units.

This pepper has a really, really, really savage burn to it.

It comes at you

like no tomorrow and then dissipates very, very quickly.

This is also a common pepper that is used

for pepper springs.

People tend to pair this

with sweet things to offset that blazing initial heat.

The hit of heat was so powerful right up front

that immediately my nose started running.

My lips are tingling.

I'm just gonna call it the average Joe dirt.

It's really spicy but it's nothing spectacular

and the average Joe thinks they're doing the best thing

by eating it.

Red Reaper Moruga.

It's a development that happened

in both Trinidad and the USA.

I worked with a scientist

in Trinidad to get this pepper going.

This pepper is really, really hot.

They averaged, they were around 1.1

1.2 million Scoville heat units.

Now this is one

of those things where a little goes a long way.

[upbeat music]

That sweetness comes through first

and then that scorpion tone from the Moruga comes in second.

So you don't really get that overwhelming

before the heat really starts kicking in

and it's starting to kick in right now where your body

or your taste buds can't really decide.

Am I tasting sweet?

Or am I tasting bitter?

Why is it getting hotter?

Did I really wanna do this to myself?

And that confusing taste really can excite a meal

be a great pepper to use for hot sauce.

That's about it.

'Cause it is brutally hot and it has a really good volume

to it that keeps the sauce really thick.

I'm gonna put this one a little bit over the scorpion.

Even though it's really hot

most people are not gonna like the flavor.

No one really should eat this pepper other

than in a hot sauce.

So maybe it's just a sauce only Pepper.

Yellow Seven Pot.

This is a yellow seven pot that originates from Jamaica.

They say that one pepper is good

for seven pots of food, depending on the color.

Between 500,000 Scoville heat units

and 800,000 Scoville heat units.

These yellows are more down on the low end

the best peppers for all around cooking.

Get that really

really good heat with a lot, a lot of flavor.

This pepper is scary when you cut them open.

Boom, look at that seed pocket all the way down.

It is an extremely hot pepper, citrus, floral

just a good all around flavor.

You can use this in almost any dish and get that really

really good heat with a lot, a lot of flavor.

Not the hottest.

Still hotter than most people will take.

Your whole family can enjoy a meal made with this pepper.

Chocolate Carolina Reaper from the United States of America.

And I'm showing you something different.

This pepper is brutal.

所以有very little you need.

It's a heavy tannin pepper.

So on the inside it might look red, it might look brown.

The color also works out to being part of the flavonoid.

These reapers have an initial sweet head and then

you could start getting that tannin reaction in your mouth.

Carolina Reaper hottest pepper in the world.

It is brutal.

I use it a lot for cooking stews.

I use it a lot for cooking eggs.

They also pair well with salt.

We do reaper salts when we do salts that have pepper

in them.

We use black reaper because that tannin and the salt really

worked well together.

It's not for normal people.

It can only be used to heat up a dish.

So I'm gonna just say this is all heat and no meat.

Reaper, this is Smokey Ed's Carolina Reaper, great state

of South Carolina in the United States.

This is the Guinness World Record for the hottest pepper

in the world.

Most of the people in this world who actually

eat Carolina Reapers are eating them in hot sauce

because that's the way to get the really good flavor

of the reaper and be able to control how much

you're taking in.

The thing that makes the Carolina Reaper different

than other peppers.

The seed pocket is really thick.

That membrane has come around the whole pepper all the way

to the bottom.

So this piece at the very bottom is gonna be

just as hot as the piece at the very top

Sweet heat right up front.

But then boom, it's right here.

It just burns.

Just a teeny bit is enough

for a whole pot and then you get that pepper flavor

you get a warm heat, something that's enjoyable.

This is brutally hot, so I'm just gonna leave it right there

with the chocolate X and just call it stupid.

HP72 from parts unknown USA.

This is the first time on camera

for this pepper that's yet to be named pepper.

It is a mixture of a chocolate pepper and a Carolina Reaper.

It is probably the ugliest pepper that I ever bred

that was tested at 2.5 million

by three different universities here in the United States.

It has very, very, very high tannin concentrates.

When you cut it open, it just oozes, oozes oil.

I'm afraid to touch it 'cause it just hurts my hands

when I do, that capsaicin producing membrane is all

around the pepper.

I have yet to try to put this

in a meal because I can't think

of anything that it's not going to overpower.

That was a mistake.

It's like it went down my palate and back up my nose.

All the oil that's been expressed from that pepper.

I can't even put this on the board.

I wouldn't give this to my best friend.

This makes those other peppers look like babies.

I'm gonna go put this somewhere else.

Seven Pot Douglah.

We're rounding out our trip around the world with one

of probably the most underrated peppers in the super huts.

A pepper from the island of Trinidad.

In the Caribbean, you can see

from the shape it's just got warts and bumps all over it.

If you look inside, the ribs are almost like ghost pepper.

It goes all the way down the plant

and the seed pockets go all the way down the plant.

We've tested them

at the local universities at over 1.3 million.

As far as I'm concerned, it's a badass pepper.

This pepper has a very, very slow build.

The flavor on this pepper is phenomenal.

The heat just a little bit above medium for me

so I'm gonna put this out

of all these peppers as the most flavorful one we have.

So as you can see, we've completed our journey

of peppers from around the world.

Maybe you can use some to expand your palette.

Maybe you shouldn't touch any at all.

Some of them have flavor, some are just heat.

Highly recommend that you start on the low end

and work your way up and remember, less is more.

You need to enjoy the food you're eating.

I am Smoking Ed Currie and I hope you enjoyed this trip

around the world with peppers.

I'm gonna [beep] up your world.

My pastor's gonna kill me. [crew laughing]