Some Like It Too Hot
A dangerous game of nuclear one-upmanship could threaten the delicate fiber of our human existence, or at least our tender innards.
I'm not talking about building a bigger, badder atomic bomb. I'm talking about creating a more diabolical hot sauce.
Every now and then, I venture by this web site to see how high the Scoville unit bar has been set: http://www.chez-williams.com/Hot%20Sauce/hothome.htm
This site for years has chronicled the hot-sauce arms race. This week, I ventured by there and, to my alarm, learned that an evil sauce that I unwittingly and liberally doused on a cracker years ago at a foo-foo shop, subsequently setting off a China Syndrome in my mouth, had fallen out of the Top 10 and all the way to 31st.
Scoville units are used to measure heat intensity. A pharmacist named Wilbur Scoville invented the scale in 1912 to measure pepper heat, according to the above web site. A "Scoville Unit" actually measures capsaicin, which gives peppers their heat.
My aforementioned fateful sauce, Dave's Ultimate Insanity Sauce, carries 250,000 Scoville units. Tabasco Sauce, at 2,140 units, is milk by comparison.
And Dave's sauce is Pepto-Bismal compared to the current Scoville champion: Blair's 16 Million Reserve. The 16 million in the name refers to the sauce having 16 million Scoville units, enough to rival the blood that poured out of those scary critters in "Aliens." Based on my calculations, even a teaspoon of this stuff would render four gallons of chili inedible to everyone but the extreme sauce hounds who have killed off all the nerve endings in their mouths.
What the heck would one do with this stuff? Kill fire ants? Put out volcanoes?
Other sauces whose Scoville prowess falls into the millions have names such as Magma 4, Demon Ichor, Da Bomb Final Answer, Pyro Diablo and, my favorite, Smack My Ass and Call Me Sally ... Chet's Gone Mad.
Heck, at a measly 800,000 Scoville units, Satan's Blood doesn't even make the Top 15.
Just to provide some perspective, I'll detail my terrible encounter with Dave's Ultimate Insanity Sauce.
A few years ago, I was with my family, including my wife and relatives from my side of the family, in this quaint little tourist town called Salado north of Austin. We went into this place called The Strawberry Patch, which had all kinds of dips an sauces and stuff. My brother-in-law and I were tasting up a storm and got to this line of products from Dave's.
There was a sign that said: "WARNING: THESE SAUCES ARE HOT! TASTE AT YOUR OWN RISK!!!"
I rolled my eyes, knowing that a bunch of little old ladies ran The Strawberry Patch, and I'd had plenty of superhot foods and sauces in my life. How hot could Strawberry Patch sauce, doled out by little old ladies, actually be?
So I start going down the line and dipping crackers, and I didn't find anything too tough to handle. But then I got to Dave's Ultimate Insanity Sauce and ignorantly soaked an entire cracker into it and popped it into my mouth. It was OK for about 0.03 seconds, but then it felt like the Chernobyl meltdown in my mouth. Fantastic pain ensued, and to make matters worse, I got the hiccups and turned red.
My brother-in-law laughed uncontrollably as I desperately looked around to find something to put out the fire. Then I looked over to see the evil grannies - the owners - laughing uncontrollably as well. One of them cackled: "The sign says it's hot! Didn't you read the sign? Bwhahahahahaha."
So then I spied a help-yourself soft-serve ice cream machine and proceeded to just put my mouth under it and turn on the spigot. Finally, about 15 minutes later, my mouth stopped being an inferno.
The evil grannies told me that the sauce is so hot that they have to change out the Styrofoam bowl every few hours so the stuff doesn't eat through and drip on the floor. They also sold something worse, Dave's Private Reserve, which is 50,000 Scoville units higher, but they wouldn't let you taste it or even buy it without signing a legal waiver.
A few hours later, I experienced the joy of that sauce coming out the other side. I still have nightmares about it and am literally breaking out in a sweat as I type this.
I can't even imagine Blair's 16 Million Reserve. Mercifully, the creators made only 999 bottles, and, according to http://www.sweatnspice.com/429-13.htm , a 1-ounce bottle sells for about $300.
If I really had the hankering to bring that kind of pain to my izzards and gizzards, I'd just as soon spend $10 and make myself a peanut-butter-and-Draino-and-lighted-gasoline sandwich.
I'm not talking about building a bigger, badder atomic bomb. I'm talking about creating a more diabolical hot sauce.
Every now and then, I venture by this web site to see how high the Scoville unit bar has been set: http://www.chez-williams.com/Hot%20Sauce/hothome.htm
This site for years has chronicled the hot-sauce arms race. This week, I ventured by there and, to my alarm, learned that an evil sauce that I unwittingly and liberally doused on a cracker years ago at a foo-foo shop, subsequently setting off a China Syndrome in my mouth, had fallen out of the Top 10 and all the way to 31st.
Scoville units are used to measure heat intensity. A pharmacist named Wilbur Scoville invented the scale in 1912 to measure pepper heat, according to the above web site. A "Scoville Unit" actually measures capsaicin, which gives peppers their heat.
My aforementioned fateful sauce, Dave's Ultimate Insanity Sauce, carries 250,000 Scoville units. Tabasco Sauce, at 2,140 units, is milk by comparison.
And Dave's sauce is Pepto-Bismal compared to the current Scoville champion: Blair's 16 Million Reserve. The 16 million in the name refers to the sauce having 16 million Scoville units, enough to rival the blood that poured out of those scary critters in "Aliens." Based on my calculations, even a teaspoon of this stuff would render four gallons of chili inedible to everyone but the extreme sauce hounds who have killed off all the nerve endings in their mouths.
What the heck would one do with this stuff? Kill fire ants? Put out volcanoes?
Other sauces whose Scoville prowess falls into the millions have names such as Magma 4, Demon Ichor, Da Bomb Final Answer, Pyro Diablo and, my favorite, Smack My Ass and Call Me Sally ... Chet's Gone Mad.
Heck, at a measly 800,000 Scoville units, Satan's Blood doesn't even make the Top 15.
Just to provide some perspective, I'll detail my terrible encounter with Dave's Ultimate Insanity Sauce.
A few years ago, I was with my family, including my wife and relatives from my side of the family, in this quaint little tourist town called Salado north of Austin. We went into this place called The Strawberry Patch, which had all kinds of dips an sauces and stuff. My brother-in-law and I were tasting up a storm and got to this line of products from Dave's.
There was a sign that said: "WARNING: THESE SAUCES ARE HOT! TASTE AT YOUR OWN RISK!!!"
I rolled my eyes, knowing that a bunch of little old ladies ran The Strawberry Patch, and I'd had plenty of superhot foods and sauces in my life. How hot could Strawberry Patch sauce, doled out by little old ladies, actually be?
So I start going down the line and dipping crackers, and I didn't find anything too tough to handle. But then I got to Dave's Ultimate Insanity Sauce and ignorantly soaked an entire cracker into it and popped it into my mouth. It was OK for about 0.03 seconds, but then it felt like the Chernobyl meltdown in my mouth. Fantastic pain ensued, and to make matters worse, I got the hiccups and turned red.
My brother-in-law laughed uncontrollably as I desperately looked around to find something to put out the fire. Then I looked over to see the evil grannies - the owners - laughing uncontrollably as well. One of them cackled: "The sign says it's hot! Didn't you read the sign? Bwhahahahahaha."
So then I spied a help-yourself soft-serve ice cream machine and proceeded to just put my mouth under it and turn on the spigot. Finally, about 15 minutes later, my mouth stopped being an inferno.
The evil grannies told me that the sauce is so hot that they have to change out the Styrofoam bowl every few hours so the stuff doesn't eat through and drip on the floor. They also sold something worse, Dave's Private Reserve, which is 50,000 Scoville units higher, but they wouldn't let you taste it or even buy it without signing a legal waiver.
A few hours later, I experienced the joy of that sauce coming out the other side. I still have nightmares about it and am literally breaking out in a sweat as I type this.
I can't even imagine Blair's 16 Million Reserve. Mercifully, the creators made only 999 bottles, and, according to http://www.sweatnspice.com/429-13.htm , a 1-ounce bottle sells for about $300.
If I really had the hankering to bring that kind of pain to my izzards and gizzards, I'd just as soon spend $10 and make myself a peanut-butter-and-Draino-and-lighted-gasoline sandwich.
posted by Brian Pearson at 9:53 AM
2 Comments:
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
I didnt have time to respond to this yesterday.. But Oh My! I love spicy food. But The idea of having a bomb going off in my mouth and through out my body.. ACK.. No thanks! Plus i'm allergic to jalopenos..
What the heck would anyone want that hot of sauce for. Surely they can't eat it! Maybe it kills mold? Now there is an idea most of us South East Texans could use right now! Hot sauce that kills mold!
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