Yay Michigan! The World’s Hottest Pepper Has Roots Here in Our State

There is, without a doubt, someone in your family or your small circle who loves spicy food. Ridiculously spicy food. They'll be glad to know the world's hottest pepper has roots in Michigan.

Ed Currie is a hot pepper expert. (He's also a glutton for punishment.) The South Carolina native set the world record in 2013 for creating the world's hottest pepper, the Carolina Reaper.

Then Currie set out to break his own record.

Crossbred With a Michigan Pepper

Nearly a decade after landing in the Guinness Book of World Records, Currie got to work creating another monster.

"A friend of mine in Michigan sent me a pepper that was brutally hot," Currie tells the Associated Press in the video below. "It also had a really cool look to it. So I bred that pepper with the Carolina Reaper."

The result was a pepper Currie calls 'Pepper X.' Last week, Pepper X was declared the hottest pepper in the world, earning its own place in the Guinness Book of World Records on October 9.

Currie says the new pepper delivers "immediate, brutal heat."

How Hot is Hot?

The hottest pepper in the world cranks about 2,693,000 Scoville heat units, the unit of measurement used to determine how much heat a pepper delivers.

Let's compare that to some other hot stuff:

• An ordinary jalapeno pepper is about 5,000 Scoville units.
• A habanero pepper is roughly 100,000 Scoville units.
• Pepper spray used by police agencies is about 1,600,000 Scoville units.

Eating Pepper X

Currie tells Fox 8 that when he sampled Pepper X, it did more than just warm his heart. He is just one of five people who have eaten his new concoction.

"I was feeling the heat for three-and-a-half hours. Then the cramps came," he said. "Those cramps are horrible. I was laid out flat on a marble wall for approximately an hour in the rain, groaning in pain."

I love spicy food. I'm looking forward to one day mowing some chicken wings doused in this new pepper with some Michigan lineage.