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Hot stuff: the world now has a newly certified hottest pepper

Only five people so far have been able to eat an entire Pepper X
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Ed Currie holds up one of his Pepper X peppers on Tuesday, Oct. 10, 2023, in Fort Mill, S.C. The pepper is now the hottest pepper variety in the world according to the Guinness Book of World Records (AP Photo/Jeffrey Collins)

Ed Currie, the South Carolina hot pepper expert who crossbred and grew the Carolina Reaper that’s hotter than most pepper sprays police use to subdue unruly criminals, has broken his own world record with a pepper that’s three times hotter.

Pepper X was publicly named the hottest pepper in the world on Oct. 9 by the Guinness Book of World Records, beating out the Reaper in Currie’s decade-long hunt to perfect a pepper that he says provides “immediate, brutal heat.

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