Photo: Guinness World Records
The man who created the Carolina Reaper chilli pepper, which held the record for the world's hottest chilli pepper, has just created a new pepper that is even hotter.
Ed Currie, the owner of Puckerbutt Pepper Company in South Carolina, has spent the last ten years working on Pepper X, as he calls his latest creation. Pepper X clocks in at a whopping 2,693,000 Scoville Heat Units (SHU), making it three times hotter than the Carolina Reaper pepper, which averaged 1.64 million SHU.
A jalapeño pepper averages between 2,000 to 8,000 SHU.
Pepper X has a higher SHU than bear spray.
Currie told the Associated Press that eating the pepper left him in immense pain.
"I was feeling the heat for three-and-a-half hours. Then the cramps came," he said. "Those cramps are horrible. I was laid out flat on a marble wall for approximately an hour in the rain, groaning in pain."
So far, only five people have tried to eat Pepper X.
While Currie celebrates another Guinness World Record, he is already working on making a pepper hotter than Pepper X.
Currie first unveiled his spicy new pepper on the YouTube series Hot Ones.