Professional hot sauce maker Smokin’ Ed Currie, the founder and president of PuckerButt Pepper Company, returns to Epicurious to blind taste 12 of the world’s hottest peppers, ranking them according to heat and flavor. Can Ed guess each pepper purely from taste and appearance?
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00:00I'm Smokin' Ed Currie, I am a pepper breeder and a hot sauce producer, and today I'm going to try 12 different peppers.
00:10The producers here order some really unique peppers, which I am going to blind taste test and try to guess what they are.
00:16And our board is back, where we're going to have more flavorful to less flavorful and mild to spicy, so we're going to rate each and every pepper.
00:31First pepper they gave me is a little green one. There are a lot of peppers that look like this.
00:36Green, no wrinkles, it's kind of smooth, but it is not indicative of what's inside.
00:42With all the oil coming out of here, it's kind of scaring me.
00:45This oil, the shiny stuff that's coming up out of the glands, that's going to be kind of hot.
00:52Boom, the heat just popped all over the place.
00:55Even though it's got a bitter tone to it, that freshness comes out, that earthy tone comes out, too.
01:01I feel heat in my throat, and on this side of my face, it's not affecting the front or the middle of the tongue like a chinaz does.
01:08There are different families of hot peppers. The milder ones come from the annums, the hotter ones come from the chinaz.
01:14Heat-wise, it's got a little bit good heat. I'm going to put it on the flavorful side.
01:18Just above the flavor line, the midpoint, and on the very mild side.
01:23I'm going to say this is a Thai bird pepper, because that's exactly what it tastes like.
01:28These peppers are best when ripe, and they usually ripen to a red.
01:31I say this is the best one for cooking. But again, let it go ripe, and roast them. They're delicious.
01:39It's a very unique shape. From the outside, it has no aroma at all.
01:44One of the ways to get the aroma is to pull the calyx off.
01:46The calyx is where the fruit grows. That's what happens to the flower when the pepper starts growing.
01:52The calyx is essentially the umbilical cord to the pepper from the plant.
01:58The lack of aroma really doesn't give me a hint as to what it is.
02:01It's going to be a milder pepper, just from the smell.
02:06But those ridges in there give me kind of a scare.
02:09The seed pocket goes all the way down. The placental tissue goes all the way down.
02:14I'm really not seeing any oil inside of this pepper.
02:18The inside of the pepper isn't totally green. It's kind of a lighter color than what's on the outside.
02:24And that is indicative of a little bit of heat.
02:27It just smells fresh. There's really no tone to it at all.
02:30I'm a little stumped right now.
02:34There's no heat in it at all. Absolutely none.
02:38All it does is, really, it just tastes like a leaf.
02:41It's going to go way down here.
02:43It reminds me of like a cassabel or something like that, that you can get at any grocery store.
02:48I was wrong on that one. It's a shishito pepper.
02:51It didn't taste like a shishito.
02:53What I'm told is 1 in 10 is spicy, and that really depends on where they're grown.
02:58Ones that are grown in a hothouse have a tendency to be a little hotter than the ones that are grown out in the field.
03:03Once they turn red, they develop a little bit more flavor and a little bit more heat.
03:09This pepper is going to be extremely brutal.
03:12See all those ridges there?
03:14See all these spikes and nodules coming out of here?
03:18Very indicative that this pepper is an angry pepper.
03:22These ridges and bubbly appearance, there are several different indications of what they are.
03:27The plant itself wants the fruit to look angry so it'll survive.
03:31There's another school of science that says this is the capsaicin glands expanding through the skin,
03:38and that's what gives it these horns.
03:41From the outside, it doesn't smell like a thing.
03:44If you see the skin, it's very shiny. It's encapsulated.
03:49But this really has no unique smell to it on the outside.
03:53But where I cut, you see the oil coming out? You see that shiny part pooling up?
03:58This is going to be a very, very brutal pepper.
04:01It doesn't have that earthy tone or that grass flavor that I described with the last two peppers.
04:07Just smelling it, your body is like, oh no, don't even eat this.
04:12The right way to find out how hot a pepper is,
04:15is to go down to what my wife calls the cheater piece, the very bottom of the pepper.
04:19It's going to give you the most flavor with the least heat.
04:22This slice is probably going to be ten times hotter than this slice.
04:25I'm stupid. I like the hot slice.
04:30Right now, my throat feels like it's going to close.
04:33My eyes are twitching and watering.
04:35I've got a little bit of ringing in my ears, and I can already feel my hands starting to shake.
04:40No matter how big of a professional you think you are,
04:43there's nothing you can do to stop the base brain things from happening.
04:48It just kind of feels like I'm floating.
04:50As far as the flavor goes, it has a really deep, earthy, mustardy flavor.
04:54Spicy, it's off the charts.
04:57Flavorful, it's one of the most flavorful of the super hot peppers.
05:01This is the Noah, something I named after a friend of mine.
05:05Very delicious, and very grumpy.
05:08This is not the type of pepper to play a trick on someone with.
05:13Very unique ridges.
05:15A few of those little spikes I was talking about before,
05:18but for the most part, the skin is very smooth and shiny.
05:21Break the calyx off, you get this really floral tone, kind of like lemongrass.
05:26It smells really good, and it brings like a happy, happy, happy tone.
05:32You can see that very high seed pocket.
05:35It's glistening on the inside, which is indicative of a lot of oil.
05:40These seeds down here that are brown did not mature.
05:44These seeds that are a normal color up top are mature,
05:48and the aroma is coming straight up already.
05:51All this oil is kind of scaring me.
05:57See that lemony flavor came in, but is a very bitter tone.
06:03So it's really not good for eating, but it is great for cooking.
06:07This is a little more on the spicy side, and because of that bitterness,
06:11I'm going to put it a little bit below the less flavorful side.
06:15This family is the Jolokia family.
06:18Specifically, this is Yellow Buddhasam.
06:20When I use it at home, I slice it into slices like this.
06:24So, so far we've had two mild peppers and two hot peppers.
06:28Let's see what they're going to bring in next.
06:32One of the things that I really like is this spiral look.
06:37See how it's got like ridges?
06:39It's just a really, really pretty pepper.
06:42It's got a whole bunch of bumps on it.
06:44It's just another phenotype from the same plant,
06:47and if you isolate them, you can grow them over and over and over again
06:50to have that look.
06:52It's a very pretty pepper,
06:54but this is one that isn't as hot as the one that we're chasing.
06:58For the next world record, you can see that that placental tissue
07:02has grown all the way around the pepper,
07:04producing a whole lot of capsaicin.
07:06And you can see the oil pooling,
07:09which tells me that this is going to hurt me very bad.
07:12It really doesn't matter where I cut a piece from.
07:15So I'm going to eat this one.
07:24It is a brutally hot pepper.
07:26Brutally hot.
07:27But the flavor is so unique, it makes me want to eat some more.
07:33It's like fruit, spice, heat, and then pain.
07:42My teeth actually feel like they're on fire.
07:45The pain is so intense in my throat
07:47that it's making me want to run and grab something to drink.
07:50I kind of feel high.
07:52I'm going to dance now.
07:56I don't know what to do.
07:58I'm going to rate this really high.
08:00So far, this is the best flavor we've had.
08:03Can you see I'm shaking?
08:04That's from the endorphin rush.
08:06This would be Pepper Y, also known as the Apollo.
08:10If I was to rate this 1 to 10,
08:12this would probably be my top three favorite peppers to play with.
08:18This pepper is very unique.
08:20There is a virus. It doesn't hurt anything.
08:23It's a plant virus.
08:24We get these separations in the wall that form unique arms
08:30that kind of give the pepper character.
08:32We call them arms because they might be giving you the finger.
08:35They might be pointing at something.
08:37We break off these arms,
08:38and this is a really delicious part of the pepper.
08:42It still has all the heat because, if you can see inside,
08:46it's nothing but placental tissue.
08:48There's none of the bumps that you get on chinos,
08:52and that's indicative on all the ones with arms.
08:55This one happens to have a really earthy tone.
08:57It's a strange mixture of everything.
09:00It's just mutant.
09:02This one's going to be brutal.
09:03When you look inside, it is not a pleasant pepper at all.
09:06Essentially, the whole thing is placental tissue,
09:09and look how the oil is pooling up from the cut.
09:15The flavor of that one tasted more like the shishito.
09:19As far as flavor goes, these only smell good.
09:23They don't taste good.
09:24I don't want to eat any more of this one.
09:26I'm actually going to put it below this one,
09:28but as far as spiciness goes, it's on top of the charts.
09:32It is a member of the chinos family.
09:35Pepper X.
09:37This is the hottest pepper in the world.
09:42Look at this pretty little pepper.
09:44It doesn't look like it's anything.
09:46It's very smooth.
09:48It has those three distinct ridges.
09:50It's got a little bit of a curve built in,
09:52so there's a little crossbreeding going on there.
09:55I know it's a crossbreed because it could be my pepper.
09:58Ooh, you might have fooled me.
10:02This placental tissue runs all the way down to the edge of the pepper,
10:06glistening inside, but there's really no oil, so to say,
10:11and really not much aroma at all.
10:14It has the inside of an orange, haven't you?
10:17It has the shape of an orange ghost pepper.
10:20We're going to find out what the flavor is.
10:25I took a big bite of this pepper because I'm not afraid of it at all.
10:29It almost has a creamsicle flavor.
10:32It's really fruity, and it's actually quite enjoyable.
10:35It looks like it's going to be an orange, haven't you?
10:38These ridges are indicative of ghost peppers,
10:41that unique three-sided look,
10:44but it tastes like a carrot pepper to me, what's normally called a carrot.
10:47When they're fully ripe, they kind of look like a Bugs Bunny carrot.
10:51They get that dark orange tone.
10:53This is the top of the chart as far as flavor,
10:56but it has absolutely no heat at all.
10:59My original guess was a carrot pepper or a no-heat habanero,
11:02and it turned out to be one of the two.
11:05Habanada!
11:07Let's see what's coming up next.
11:11So right off the bat visual, this is a really beautiful pepper.
11:15The color draws you in.
11:17It's just one of those earthy tones, these fall tones.
11:20If you rotate it a little bit, you can see some bumps coming out of it.
11:25This top right here, this five-lobed top,
11:28lets me know that it might be either something in the Scotch Bonnet family
11:33or the 7-Pot family.
11:35But on this side where I cut through some placental tissue,
11:38you can see the oil popping out right away.
11:41The aroma is really sweet.
11:43I mean, it's a very, very sweet pepper.
11:46Even though it smells fresh and it doesn't have that acridic smell of a real Superhot,
11:51it's got all the indices of being a real Superhot.
11:55When I smell this, I think of things like ceviche,
11:58something with citrus and sugar.
12:00I've had so many hot things.
12:02And it's saying, please don't do this.
12:07Oh, it's extremely sweet.
12:09It's got such a fruit-forward flavor.
12:14It needs to be in something like jelly.
12:17It needs to be in a marmalade.
12:19All flavor, very little heat.
12:21Just a little bit more heat than the Thai chili,
12:25but a lot more flavor.
12:27Orange Havanera.
12:29We've had some peppers from all around the world,
12:31some really exciting ones, some really tasty ones,
12:34some stupid hot ones.
12:36I'm just ready to roll.
12:38So let's see what Pepper No. 9 is.
12:41This is actually the true shape of a true Scotch Bonnet,
12:45but with one exception on this one.
12:47If you look at the skin on this side,
12:50then you can see these little sharp spikes.
12:53This pepper has been bred with something else.
12:56Unlike the last pepper that we tried,
12:59which is from the same family,
13:01this one has a very thick seed pocket and very thick skin.
13:05This one has that same fruity aroma,
13:09but what happens when you eat it
13:11is that you get the cross that's in there,
13:14whereas the last one would be good ceviche for my wife,
13:17this one would make good ceviche for me
13:20because I like things with a little kick.
13:25Excellent flavor, man.
13:26Anything you were going to use a Havanera for,
13:28if you want a little more heat, this is the one to use.
13:32Look at this one. It's got a little mouth.
13:34Is it laughing or crying?
13:35Well, it's laughing at you,
13:36but it's crying because it's going to get ate.
13:38This is the spice I like.
13:40Okay, this is the heat level I like
13:42for everyday, normal eating.
13:44I'm going to put it as less flavorful,
13:47but it's got more flavor than the Yellow Ghost pepper.
13:51So if I'm guessing the name of this one,
13:54it's the Scotch Bonnet Times Reaper.
13:56We're the ones who did it, we're the ones who sell it,
13:59and you can get it at any time to grow it at home.
14:03Ah, look at this.
14:05Look, it's kind of beautiful.
14:07It's a very flat, very long pepper.
14:09Doesn't have any unique lines for the placental tissue.
14:14I think it's going to be a really flavorful pepper.
14:17Okay, so if we look at the interior of this one,
14:21there are two distinct placental lines.
14:24That's indicative of a cayenne,
14:26especially a cayenne from Central America.
14:28Very long seed pocket, goes all the way to the bottom.
14:31Just by touching it to the table,
14:33you got two very distinct lines of oil.
14:37This one's a little bit hotter, it's making my nose run.
14:41I'm going to put this on the mild side
14:45and just a little bit higher than the Scotch Bonnet Reaper.
14:50So the name of this crossbreed is Cayenne Times White Ghost.
14:55Cayennes tend to breed really well with other peppers.
14:58We've done 10 peppers, most of which have been pretty good,
15:01a couple of which who haven't.
15:04I'm excited about this next one.
15:06It is a beautiful pepper.
15:09It has a very distinct tail, very distinct lobes,
15:12and very distinct bumps all over it.
15:14And it's also a bright, shiny color.
15:16It says, Don't Eat Me.
15:18When you cut this inside, we got the high seed pocket.
15:22It's got placental tissue everywhere,
15:25which is extruding the oil from the glands.
15:29And the aroma from it is absolutely amazing.
15:33And if it seems like I'm talking because I don't want to eat the pepper,
15:37that's because I'm talking because I don't want to eat the pepper.
15:43My eyes are watering, my mouth is on fire, my chest is on fire,
15:48and I'm the happiest man in the world.
15:51Flavor, though, it's not nearly as flavorful as these X and Y variants.
15:57Such a quick punch that unless you cook with it,
16:02it's really not a good pepper for anything else.
16:06This is one of my babies that I'm so proud of.
16:09This is the Carolina Reaper.
16:12When you put it in your mouth, you're like, Oh, that's sweet.
16:14When you chew it, all of a sudden you're like, Oh, that's not sweet.
16:18That's fire.
16:20All the flavor of the pepper disappears almost immediately.
16:24This is not for eating straight.
16:27And we're to the final pepper.
16:29And I'm so excited to find out what it is.
16:34I don't even want to look down.
16:36Look at this unique shape.
16:38It not only has wrinkles and warts, but it's also got a good angle to it.
16:42I'm going to cut this in two slices so you can see what's going on.
16:45Not only has the high C pocket,
16:47but the placental tissue goes all the way down to the bottom.
16:50And it's got oil going everywhere.
16:53The aroma that's coming out of it is just amazing.
16:57The tannin smell from it reminds me of a dark chocolate.
17:01I kind of want to go for the cheater piece on this one.
17:08I'm going to go a little higher.
17:10Because that was nothing but that first tannic flavor and then sweetness.
17:13No real discernible heat.
17:17Oh, there we go.
17:20It kind of has a...
17:22kind of an allspice taste to it.
17:24It's a brutal heat.
17:26It's not quite as spicy as a Reaper.
17:29This is probably the least flavorful pepper that we've tried today.
17:33More spicy than the Reaper x Scotch Bonnet or the Butt.
17:37Less spicy than the other ones.
17:39It's only good for cooking.
17:41Only good for making hot sauce.
17:44It's pretty easy for me on this one.
17:46This is a Caramel Razor, which was born and bred at Puckerbell Pepper Company.
17:50We've gone through 12 peppers.
17:52There's more on the table. We can rate those. They're all mild.
17:55But maybe we'll do something different the next time.
17:58Okay, there you have it.
18:00It was really a lot of fun going from peppers that you can get anywhere
18:04to peppers that are not released yet to the general public.
18:07I've had a blast being with you today.
18:10Have a great day, and I look forward to the next time
18:13we're here on Epicurious, blindly tasting peppers.