Our tolerance for spicy food runs the gamut. Some of us taste a serrano pepper slice and run for a fire extinguisher.
Others would happily drink a full bottle of hot sauce if table decorum allowed it. In fact, some people are so committed to capsaicin (the substance that makes food taste spicy) that they scour restaurants and grocery stores in search of the world's hottest chili peppers.
But what is the hottest pepper in the world? To determine that, we first need to understand what defines "hot."
6. Scotch Bonnet Pepper (350,000 SHUs)
Also known as Bonney peppers or Caribbean red peppers, Scotch bonnet peppers take their name from their visual resemblance to a Scottish tam o'shanter cap. They are close cousins of the habanero pepper and about equally spicy.
Scotch bonnets grow abundantly in tropical South America, West Africa and the Caribbean. This makes them a popular choice if you're doing some Caribbean cooking and want to impart authentic flavor. Before the 1990s, the Scotch bonnet was one of only two peppers to measure above 350,000 SHUs. (The other was the habanero.)
5. Bhut Jolokia (Ghost) Pepper (1,001,304 SHUs)
Known as the ghost pepper in the United States, the Bhut Jolokia comes from northeast India. Its name translates to "Bhutanese pepper."
This naturally occurring pepper is routinely consumed in neighboring Bhutan, a country sometimes heralded as having the world's spiciest cuisine. The ghost pepper is twice as spicy as the red Savina and took over its Guinness title of "world's hottest pepper" in 2006.
4. Naga Viper Pepper (1,382,118 SHUs)
The Naga viper pepper originally comes from the U.K. — not because it naturally grows in that country's cool, damp climate, but because a pepper breeder in Grange-Over-Sands, Cumbria created it by hybridizing the Naga Morich, Bhut Jolokia and Moruga Scorpion peppers.
In 2011, this particular pepper briefly held the title of hottest pepper in the world from Guinness World Records.
3. Trinidad Scorpion Butch T Pepper (1,463,700 SHUs)
This pepper first appeared in Trinidad and Tobago using seeds that breeder Butch Taylor produced in Mississippi. These chili peppers consistently rank among the spiciest in the world, although they're certainly not for everyone.
"Asthmatics should stay away. It could literally take their breath away," Taylor told Country Roads magazine in 2014. "If you eat a Trinidad scorpion pepper straight, it burns immediately and keeps getting hotter. ... On an empty stomach it might make you puke."
2. Trinidad Moruga Scorpion Pepper (2,009,231 SHUs)
Unlike the Trinidad scorpion Butch T pepper, the Trinidad Moruga scorpion is a longstanding native of Trinidad and Tobago, and it thrives there as a stable, non-hybrid species.
On first bite, this super hot pepper has a surprisingly fruity flavor that gives way to intense heat that lasts several minutes. In 2012, the pepper was rated the world's hottest by the New Mexico Chile Conference.
It has since ceded that title, but it remains popular in a variety of hot sauces that draw upon its unique blend of sweetness and spice.
1. Carolina Reaper Pepper (2,200,000 SHUs)
In 2013, Guinness World Records officially declared the Carolina Reaper the hottest pepper in the world, a title it still holds.
The pepper is a cultivar developed by "Smokin'" Ed Currie of South Carolina, who owns the Puckerbutt Pepper Company. Like the Trinidad scorpion, this pepper is a blend of sweetness and heat. The pepper averages 1,641,183 SHUs but can get as hot as 2,200,000 SHUs.
The League of Fire, a society that ranks chili-eating champions, oversees a Carolina Reaper pepper challenge to determine the most spice-tolerant eaters on the planet.
An Australian man named Gregory "Iron Guts" Barlow holds the contest record, consuming 160 Carolina Reapers in a single sitting. For most mortals, even a whiff of the pepper's aerosolized oils might have us panting for breath.
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