Carolina Reaper

History

The Carolina Reaper was created by Ed Currie, founder of the PuckerButt Pepper Company in Fort Mill, South Carolina, through over a decade of selective breeding beginning around 2003. Currie crossed a Pakistani Naga pepper with a Red Habanero, then spent years stabilizing the variety and selecting for maximum heat. In November 2013, Guinness World Records certified the Carolina Reaper as the world's hottest pepper at an average of 1,569,300 Scoville Heat Units, with individual peppers testing as high as 2.2 million SHU. The pepper's distinctive appearance—bright red, gnarled, and wrinkled with a pointed "scorpion tail" stinger—makes it instantly recognizable. What surprised many was that beneath the extreme heat lies a genuinely pleasant flavor: fruity, almost citrusy sweetness that reveals itself once the initial burn subsides. Currie, a self-described "hot sauce alchemist," originally pursued superhot peppers not for bragging rights but because capsaicin research suggested potential health benefits, including cancer-fighting properties. The Reaper became a viral sensation, spawning countless YouTube challenge videos, hot sauce product lines, and even a medical case report after a man experienced "thunderclap headaches" from eating one. While newer peppers like Pepper X (also bred by Currie) have since claimed higher heat records, the Carolina Reaper remains the most famous superhot pepper and the benchmark against which all others are measured.