British guy creates super-chili

Reading Yahoo news this morning directed me to an article about a British chili farmer who's created a new claimant to the crown of world's hottest chili... or alternatively, the only chili hot enough to destroy your colon.

Fiery food mavens seeking to one-up each other now have to gear up for a whole new test of culinary bravado: the world's hottest chili pepper.

Yes, the Naga Viper, the latest claimant to the world's-hottest-pepper crown, outdistances its predecessor, the Bhut Jolokia, or "ghost chili," by more than 300,000 points on the famous Scoville scale of tongue-scorching chili hotness. Researchers at Warwick University testing the Naga Viper found that it measures 1,359,000 on the Scoville scale, which rates heat by tracking the presence of a chemical compound. In comparison, most varieties of jalapeño peppers measure in the 2,500 to 5,000 range -- milder than the Naga Viper by a factor of 270.

You hear that right, it's a full 300,000 points ahead of the infamous bhut jolokia, or ghost chili, on the Scoville scale. The pepper clocks in at 1,359,000 Scoville units, which works out to about 270 times hotter than a jalapeno. This thing is so fiery, the military is investigating its use potential as a weapon.

I wonder how long it will be before Adam Richman features a dish containing this colon-destroying pepper on his show?