Hottest Chilies - The Fiery Race Is On

By Author: Chris McCarthy
Total Articles: 12
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People are naturally curious about the biggest, the thinnest, the tallest and the strongest. The hottest chilies too incur such inquisitiveness, much speculation and even more debates. The hottest chilies on earth are vying for a prestigious mention in the Guinness Book of World Records and inclusion in the hottest hot sauces of the world.

Chilies owe their heat to the molecule Capsaicin. The hottest chilies in the world contain an abundance of this.

The heat of a chili is measured in Scoville Units, named after Wilbur Scoville. In 1912, Scoville got a group to tasters to sip a mixture of ground chilies and sugar-water solution. He kept on adding sugar to the blend until it no longer produced the burning sensation in the mouth. Scoville then allocate a number to each chili based on the amount of sugar needed to dissipate the heat and thus you have the Scoville units.

Nowadays, the human element in the process has been done away with and replaced by HPLC, or High Performance Liquid Chromatography, which measures the amount of capsaicin present in chilies. Pure capsaicin incidentally measures 16,000,000 ...
... Scoville units.

The race for the top spot in the Scoville ladder is hot with two claimants. GNS Spices of California stake their claim with the Red Savina Habanero pepper, which measures a blistering 580,000 Scoville units. The Red Savina pepper features in the Guinness Book of World Records as the hottest chili ever.

Heatedly arguing its claim is the Naga Jolokia, an Indian variety of pepper grown in the northeastern hills of Assam. And it brandishes 855,000 Scoville units.

The Habanero family of chili peppers, natives of Havana, Cuba, produce some of the hottest chilies on earth and can measure up to 100,000 - 350,000 Scoville Units. Sharing podium space with them is the Scotch Bonnet, which grows mainly in the Caribbean Islands.

The Santaka, Chiltecpin and Thai varieties of peppers complete a photo finish with heat levels of 50,000 - 100,000 Scoville Units. Though not in the same league as the Habanero peppers, the hugely popular hot sauce regulars, Cayenne and Tabasco peppers rate at 30,000 - 50,000 Scoville Units. Chile De Arbol finds honorable mention at 15,000 - 30,000 Scoville Units, while Yellow Wax and Serrano give a feisty, fiery fight with 5,000 - 15,000 Scoville Units.

The also-rans in the fierce competition amongst the hottest chilies in the world are the Mirasol, Chipotle, Poblano and the famed Jalapeno peppers with tantalizing heat levels of 2,500 - 5,000 Scoville Units. Following them are the Sandia and Cascabel peppers with 1,500 - 2,500 Scoville Units of heat and the Ancho, Pasilla, Espanola and Anaheim chili peppers sporting 1,000 - 1,500 Scoville Units of heat.

At 100-1,000 Scoville Units, the Mexi-Bells and Anaheim peppers are lagging far in the heat race.

The hottest chilies in the world are spreading fire like nothing else.

Author Bio

Chris McCarthy is the owner of InsaneChicken.com. Buy all of your favorite Hot Sauces from InsaneChicken. We have a large selection of sauces including the famous Ghost Pepper Sauce .