Hot sauce is lovely and can actually really add to a dish. Some people think it's just for people to toss onto everything so they don't actually have to taste the food, but it's not like that at all. In terms of the usual suspects, which would basically be Franks, Tabasco, and Cholula where I come from, Cholula is the best. We also have a really nice local hot sauce company called Horsetooth Hot Sauce which makes a Scotch Bonnet and mango hot sauce called the Naughty #4, and it's delicious. It's nice to go to our burrito places as well, because they have collections of weird, random hot sauces from all over the country.

Sounds like serranos, which are very similar to jalapenos, but are skinnier, hotter, it's own unique flavor. They're usually right next to jalapenos in grocery stores and I find that those two are the most likely to find in a supermarket.

Another thing about handling those peppers - it may not be as bad as getting it in your eyes, but you'll discover nicks and cuts on your hands that you never knew you had.

Louisiana is my favorite hawt sawce.

Gives a smoky heat.

Nice avatar, Vom! And no, I just experience extended trips to the bathroom the next day...

Now this is my kind of thread!

I am a chilli addict, no two ways about it. I've loved hot food since I was a kid, even though the family didn't so I couldn't have it too often. Dad was a wimp, and my Mum and brother can handle a bit, but not much. I do remember hearing that my grandad developed a taste for heat when he was serving with the RAF in North Africa though, so perhaps I got it from him. Indian food is really popular in Britain, so my friend and I went on a little tour to sample the so-called hottest curries in the country. I basically laughed them all off but my mate was caught out by one in Edinburgh and had to go to hospital (the baby!)

As far as chilli (or hot) sauces are concerned, I'm not a big fan. Some of them can reach pretty decent heat levels but I've found that they are almost universally disappointing when it comes to flavour. This is why I grow my own chilli peppers and make my own sauces. I have grown the bhut jolokia, naga jolokia and the naga viper in the past and am currently growing the Trinidad Scorpion, although it doesn't seem to like the British climate much, even when grown indoors. I also grow milder varieties, but since the topic is heat I won't bother to mention them. Out of these I make all different kinds of sauces, from fruity to barbecuey (is that a word?) to the ultra hot. I'm currently looking for a pepper that is in the genus capsicum chinense but without the distinctive habanero-y flavour to it, more like the common capsicum frutescens species, so any suggestions would be very welcome.

One thing that annoys me about liking really hot food, or more accurately, telling other people about liking really hot food, is their insistance that "You can't possibly taste that with so musch chilli in it"! No. Maybe you can't. I can. I've even found the capsaicin in chillies to accentuate certain flavours. Cumin and corriander are two such flavours, and that, I think, explains why they are so often used in conjunction with chillies. But, like so many other areas in life, some people will stubbornly refuse to believe that other people could possibly experience the world differently to them. Ah, well...

Incidentally, the OP stated that 16,000,000,000 SHU (Scoville heat units) is the hottest currently available. While this is accurate, it should also be said that it is the hottest that will ever be available, as pure capsaicin is rated at 16m SHU. I've never heard of this Intefera-thingy-toxin, though. I'd guess it was a capsaicin anologue, but whether it's synthetic or naturally occuring I have no idea.

That would almost certainly be the Birdseye chilli. They use it in just about everything.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MhfobnpvhnA Enjoy!

I had something called Da Bomb sauce once. It isn't really something you eat though. It can burn your skin and it makes you want to puke. I have no idea what was in it but I took 5 times more than anyone else around me and I fought so hard not to but I puked. Another person dipped their finger in it and tasted it. Then they rubbed it off on their shirt by rubbing their tongue against the fabric. The Sauce combined with the saliva leaked through and left a pretty bad rash across his stomach(kind of like a Portuguese Man-O-War sting. Someone else put some on a piece of chicken and took a small bite and puked. They threw the rest out of the window and a chicken(we have a wild chicken problem on Kauai) came and ate it. Yes a chicken ate chicken, big deal. This piece of chicken had most of that Da Bomb sauce still on it.

The chicken, whom I will call Bob from this point onward, started freaking the hell out. Bob started running around, pecking at walls and banging his head against the ground. Bob then flew into a window and fell to the ground and was very still. After about 10 seconds Bob started twitching. Bob then got up and started walking in a weird manner while tweaking his neck. Some security guard then decided to try and drink water from the fountain and Bobbed wigged the hell out again and flew at the security guard and landed on the fountain. Where it started trying to drink what little water was still in the water fountain. Once the water drained away Bob just sat there pecking away at the fountain for like 5 minutes and we stopped watching for awhile. But we could still here the clanging sound coming from Bob pecking at the metal water fountain.

I watched that yesterday. Along with a host of videos about people eating a bhut jolokia.

Classic...

I don't get hiccups, but damn do I go red in the face. BRIGHT red.

And by eating "hot food" I mean nothing spicier than cajun spice (I know, pathetic!). I won't go near anything as "mild" as jalapenos, far too much for me. I'm a mild flavour kinda gal

We should go out for a curry some time, then! Er, because then everyone can gang up on me and have a good laugh.

I forget the name of the hot sauce I had where I had to sign a waiver to try a toothpick's amount of. All I know is that it was sweet at first and I was like...'Why'd I need to sign a waiver? This stuff is...oh..oh...oh...god...no...make it stop...make...it...stop....MY HEAD IS ON FIRE!!! I'M BLIND!!!!'

That was some awesome hot sauce. My tongue, neck and head went numb and I began to sweat uncontrollably and my vision went all blurry. It was awesome.

lol You guys do know you're suppose to wear gloves when handling peppers, right? Hence, you don't have to wash your hands a billion times or be afraid of touching your eyes/face or anything after you are finished cutting them up or whatever. You can pick up food safe disposable gloves at any grocer. Just FYI.

Curry is more my speed of "spicy". Green curry to be exact... so good! I haven't gotten the hiccups from spices, but I definitely turn red, sweat, and then get severe heartburn/indigestion if something is too hot.

Thanks! I'm a less good photographer than I'd like to be, but I'm quite proud of that one.


I was thinking of Indian curry (or thereabouts) when I wrote that, but I've never actually been out for a Thai curry. I should do, especially as I understand there's supposed to be quite a good restaurant around here somewhere. I've had the odd home-made Thai curry, but it's not really the same.

The other after effect I tend to get is stomach cramps in the early hours, but at least I don't seem to be overly afflicted with burning bum syndrome!

Living where I do, I've never had the chance to experience Indian curry. I want to though! I'm pretty sure it's 100x hotter than Thai because green curry isn't very hot for the most part. I think the coconut really helps calm the flavor.

I've heard that Thai curry can be pretty mean, and a lot of Indian curries are quite mild. Or rather Anglo-Indian, which is really the mainstay of my experience, but the most popular tend to be spicy in terms of flavouring rather than spicy in terms of being really hot. I also suspect that coconut milk probably tames some of the hotness; I'm not sure if it's its fat content, but regular milk, yoghurt and so on do the same thing, whereas water (and, infamously, lager) probably make it worse...

You guys are making me damned hungry lol...if anyone wants some good curry and is ever in Hawaii I know a really good place...but I am a broke college student and need a free meal now and then...

You're in Hawaii?

Yup.

I like hot sauce, but not too hot. I like to use Tobasco sauce on my eggs or sometimes pizza. I once tried a chili at my bosses house after work one night (when I lived in NM) I remember taking the lid off the pot to get a whiff. It instantly made my eyes water. It tasted great but it was by far the spiciest chili that I've ever had. I have no idea what type of peppers he used for it.

I once had a burrito at a restaurant that was so spicy I had to sign a waiver before they would bring it to me. it's also the only time I've ever had to drink milk while eating spicy food. I believe the sauce was made by a company called hot lick.