Guinness World Records recently announced that the world’s new hottest pepper is a veggie known as Pepper X, grown in South Carolina.
But Ryan Karcher, a veteran pepper grower from Howell, questions Pepper X’s reported heat measurement, according to a Jan. 8 story in Michigan Farm News.
Karcher says he has developed a pepper that’s tastier and more representative of the pepper community.
It will be featured in a Jan. 22 television show called “Superhot: The Spicy World of Pepper People,” which will air on Hulu.
Karcher said he has doubted that Pepper X was truly the world’s hottest since its announcement on Oct. 16, 2023.
“Guinness World Records is a wonderful children’s book,” he said. “It’s not a scientific journal.”
And an expert chemical analyst concludes the pepper was improperly tested after a review of the lab report that Guinness used to verify its heat.
Counters Puckerbutt Pepper Co. president Ed Currie: “I think the pepper-growing community is full of a lot of people who dislike me. It’s already been through the process. I don’t need to prove myself to anybody on social media.”
You can read the rest of this fascinating story in Michigan Farm News.
