Carolina Reaper is world’s hottest pepper (VIDEO)

The hottest peppers in the world are grown in South Carolina, the Guinness Book of World Records says.

Ed Currie took a sweet hot pepper from the Caribbean and worked to make it hotter, spending more than four years working with students at Winthrop University who test food as part of their undergraduate classes to certify the amount of heat.

Last year, New Mexico State University’s Chile Pepper Institute named the Trinidad Moruga Scorpion the hottest chile in the world, with a mean of more than 1.2 million Scoville heat units and individual plants with a heat of more than 2 million units.

In comparison, a Bhut Jolokia or Trinidad Scorpion Butch T pepper can reach about 1.5 million Scoville units. Bird’s eye chiles can hit about 100,000 Scoville units, and a regular jalapeno about 8,000 units. The AP says pepper spray comes in at about 2 million Scoville units.

Currie sells Carolina Reaper seeds and hot sauces, dubbed I Dare You Stupit and Purgatory sauce, on his PuckerButt Pepper website.

Canadajournal/AP