Grand reaper pepper1/13/2024 "I'm not really worried if someone else gets the record," he says, drawing out the end of the sentence for emphasis. And behind Currie, a mass of pepper fiends with grand aspirations and dragon breath are scrambling to engineer something that'll hit the next baseline: a pepper that hits 3 million Scovilles. The NYC Hot Sauce Expo returns to the Brooklyn Expo Center on April 22. Paqui will revisit the chip challenge in the spring, when a fresh round of snot-dripping sauce fiends will injure their soft tissue for a high. Where could it possibly go from here? At a certain point, doesn't the human body reach a hotness threshold? If it does, pepper entrepreneurs are determined to reach it. By the end of the video, they look like they just ran a half-marathon, not well. A young guy complains that "air hurts." Two young women named Annie and Alison start strong it's a good minute or so before it starts to feel like "someone's pouring acid" down their throats. "Every time I breathe out, it gets worse! It's in my ears!") Two guys sample chips in a cubicle farm one says it "tastes like chemicals" while the other rocks back and forth in search of comfort. ("This is pepper spray!" his buddy yells. A guy in a Thrasher shirt waves his hands around like a 4-year-old. The videos, as you might expect, range all the way from people who look like they're going to barf to people actually barfing. YouTube videos of people trying the Carolina Reaper are known to hit 9 million or even nearly 20 million views. A full 10,000 people turned out to the 2016 New York City Hot Sauce Expo, and in all likelihood you live near a dangerous chili-eating competition. The hot-sauce market grew 150 percent between 20, more than all other condiments combined. Like craft beers and beard oil, hot sauces are blowing up worldwide. In Rock Hill, Currie welcomed guys who'd driven 300 miles for a chip he saw one on eBay for $337.Ĭurrie had pushed for a run of 5 million, but Paqui came in way lower. "Online inventory was gone in 20 minutes," Day says. The Carolina Reaper Madness Chip went on sale October 1 fueled by word of mouth and coverage by basically any online outlet in search of web traffic, it sold out in some stores that same day. "It totally exceeded our expectations."Īs marketing stunts go, it was a slam-dunk, skillfully merging the human drive to go bigger, hotter, and faster with the primal joy of watching people on YouTube hurt themselves. "To be candid, there was an overwhelming demand," said Jeff Day, brand manager of Paqui (pronounced "pocky"). Yet in October, pepper poppers like Bumblefoot spent weeks posting videos of Reaper Madness consumption as part of the #OneChipChallenge, a viral-marketing stunt launched by Currie's partners, the upstart chip company Paqui. In short, he says, "They're chasing a high."Īs you might expect, consuming something that ranks 1.56 million of anything makes most people plead for death in the nearest bathroom. And the metabolism increase burns fat and gets rid of toxicity," says Currie. "If I get someone to try a Reaper, just a sliver, at first they're like aaaaaaaugh!" he says, laughing, with less supervillainous cruelty than I'd been expecting. himself) chili pain and pleasure coexist in a fragile balance, that those who chomp on stomach-demolishing peppers, sauces, and spices aren't trying to embark on Homer Simpson vision quests or outduel each other for alpha-male spice supremacy. A soft-spoken former chemist and something of a holistic ambassador for the world of hot pepper, Currie says that for some people (i.e. This made the Reaper a pretty big deal for its inventor, Ed Currie, CEO of the Rock Hill, South Carolina–based company called-say it with me-PuckerButt. A guy who spent eight years with Axl Rose as his boss is getting slaughtered by a tortilla chip while his wife is like, eh, whatever. Jen, next to him, continues to seem totally fine. "I no longer have use of my eye," he says, half-laughing through tears and mucus. A few minutes in, he absently brushes his right eye, which, because his immune system works, immediately swells shut. I'm feeling kind of sweaty." He grimaces, forces some smiles, the fire inching back up his throat. "If you like pain, you're gonna like this," he says, through breaths that grow increasingly panting. Bumblefoot, meanwhile, looks like somebody hit self-destruct on his face. In the video, the guitarist, Ron "Bumblefoot" Thal, places the shard of fire on his tongue as his wife of 27 years, Jen, does the same. The box contained a tortilla chip-one single chip-made from the dust of the Carolina Reaper, the hottest pepper on Earth, designed solely to obliterate the senses. Late last year, the former guitarist for Guns N’ Roses propped up his camera phone, pressed the record button, produced a cherry red coffin-shaped box, and put its contents directly in his mouth.
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