It's difficult to keep up with these things! I just posted about the Bhat Jolokia chili (also called the Naga, or Ghost Chili) and WHAM! Next thing I read was about the newest king chili as of March 2011, the Trinidad Scorpion Butch T, bred in Australia. See, now we're getting into the realm of genetic engineering, and chili peppers also hybridize very easily, so you'll see hotter and hotter chilies come out fast, all of them patented, as people try to capture that coveted crown of hotness. By next month this record will be obsolete. I guess that means the Naga Viper will be the last "natural" chili (as far as there is such a thing - they all descend from something like the chiltepin from the Americas) to hold the hot crown. Here's a blurb on it, and holy shit they actually mention measurement error and significant figures! Maybe science is not totally dead.
"The Trinidad Scorpion Butch T pepper is the hottest pepper in the world according to Guinness World Records. Prior to this, the world's hottest pepper was a specimen of the Naga Viper pepper. A laboratory test conducted in March, 2011 measured a specimen of Trinidad Scorpion Butch T at 1,463,700 Scoville heat units, making it hotter than the Naga Viper's 1,382,118 Scoville heat units. Hotness of a species of chili pepper can vary by up to a factor of 10 depending on the conditions under which the specimen grew. High-performance liquid chromatography has a limited precision and an accuracy to about 5 percent; Scoville units reported with more than two significant figures should be regarded as for entertainment purposes only and not a scientific assessment of the heat of the pepper."
"The Trinidad Scorpion Butch T pepper is the hottest pepper in the world according to Guinness World Records. Prior to this, the world's hottest pepper was a specimen of the Naga Viper pepper. A laboratory test conducted in March, 2011 measured a specimen of Trinidad Scorpion Butch T at 1,463,700 Scoville heat units, making it hotter than the Naga Viper's 1,382,118 Scoville heat units. Hotness of a species of chili pepper can vary by up to a factor of 10 depending on the conditions under which the specimen grew. High-performance liquid chromatography has a limited precision and an accuracy to about 5 percent; Scoville units reported with more than two significant figures should be regarded as for entertainment purposes only and not a scientific assessment of the heat of the pepper."
Please note for comparison: A Jalapeño is about 2,500-8,000 Scoville Units. Here's the current scale:
| Scoville heat units | Examples |
| 15,000,000–16,000,000 | Pure capsaicin |
| 8,600,000–9,100,000 | Various capsaicinoids (e.g., homocapsaicin, homodihydrocapsaicin, nordihydrocapsaicin) |
| 5,000,000–5,300,000 | Law enforcement grade pepper spray, FN 303 irritant ammunition |
| 855,000–1,463,700 | Naga Viper pepper, Infinity Chilli, Naga Jolokia pepper (ghost chili), Trinidad Scorpion Butch T pepper |
| 350,000–580,000 | Red Savina habanero |
| 100,000–350,000 | Habanero chili, Scotch bonnet pepper, Datil pepper, Rocoto, Madame Jeanette, Jamaican hot pepper |
| 50,000–100,000 | Byadgi chilli, Bird's eye chili, Malagueta pepper, Chiltepin pepper, Piri piri (African bird's eye), Pequin pepper |
| 30,000–50,000 | Guntur chilli, Cayenne pepper, Ají pepper, Tabasco pepper, Cumari pepper (Capsicum Chinese) |
| 10,000–23,000 | Serrano pepper, Peter pepper, Aleppo pepper, Cheong-Yang pepper |
| 2,500–8,000 | Jalapeño pepper, Guajillo pepper, New Mexican varieties of Anaheim pepper, Paprika (Hungarian wax pepper), Tabasco sauce |
| 500–2,500 | Anaheim pepper, Poblano pepper, Rocotillo pepper, Peppadew, Padron pepper |
| 100–500 | Pimento, Peperoncini, Banana pepper |
| 0 | No significant heat, Bell pepper, Cubanelle, Aji dulce |
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