Pepper X Becomes World’s Hottest Chili and Helps Creator Smash Own Heat Record

FORT MILL, S.C. (AP) — 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 decadelong hunt to perfect a pepper that he says provides “immediate, brutal heat.”