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Hottest Pepper
The world’s hottest pepper is constantly changing, evolving almost. It seems every year a new pepper is either created or discovered so check back often to see new record breaking peppers! PepperHead® has the most up-to-date list of the World’s Hottest Peppers. Here at PepperHead® we have been growing these “super hots” for over 20 years and have grown and eaten every pepper on this list. We are dedicated to providing you spicy lovers with the ability to grow all of these insanely spicy peppers in your own backyards. Without further ado, here is our Top 10 Hottest Pepper List.Share this Hottest Pepper List
Top 10 Hottest Peppers In The World [2026 Update]
SHU = Scoville Heat Unit (A measure of Spiciness) Pepper Scoville Scale displayed as Peak SHU Values SHU is a way of quantifying how spicy a pepper is by measuring the concentration of capsaicinoids. Capsaicin is the chemical responsible for the spicy sensation within a pepper.1. Pepper X 2,693,000 SHU
Pepper X is now the World’s hottest Pepper with an average of 2.69 Million Scoville Units and peaks over 3 Million SHU. Not much is known about this pepper since seeds have not been publicly released. So unfortunately you cannot taste or grow Pepper X yourself.
2. Carolina Reaper 2,200,000 SHU
The Carolina Reaper pepper is 200x hotter than a Jalapeno #WorldsHottestPepperJust looking at the pictures above, you know its one mean pepper. The Carolina Reaper has a unique stinger tail that is unlike any other pepper and every pod is different! It gets this insane heat from being a cross between a Ghost Pepper and a Red Habanero. Oddly enough this pepper doesn’t just have heat, but excellent fruity flavor to boot. Well, that is before it melts your face off. More Carolina Reaper Info
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Watch these Chicks eat The Carolina Reaper
10 Even more Hilarious Videos of The Carolina Reaper Challenge
Test your heat tolerance with the PepperHead Challenge! Eat a whole Carolina Reaper Pepper on camera and receive a FREE T-Shirt!
You can now buy the reaper as powder, live plants or seeds so you can grow your own plant and try for yourself.3. Trinidad Moruga Scorpion 2,009,231 SHU
Straight from the depths of hell the Trinidad Scorpion Moruga Blend, AKA Moruga Scorpion, is a rare sought after pepper that was only just recently discovered.
Native to the lands of Moruga in Trinidad and Tobago. Once you take a bite of this formidable pepper the heat never stops building.
This pepper may be lacking the Reaper’s stinger, but don’t let that fool you. The Moruga Scorpion is every bit as hot as The Carolina Reaper.
More Moruga Scorpion Info
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Watch Rhett & Link from Good Mythical Morning Eat the Moruga Scorpion
4. 7 Pot Douglah 1,853,936 SHU
Well renown in the pepper community as one of the hottest peppers with the best flavor.
The 7 Pot Douglah is the hottest pepper you can find that isn’t red.
The hottest “superhot” peppers are traditionally red, but the Douglah defies the odds by being brown AND scortching hot.
You can’t go wrong with fresh, dried, or powdered Douglah on any food.
Also known as 7 Pod Douglah, Chocolate 7 Pod or the 7 Pot Brown.
More Douglah Info
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5. 7 Pot Primo 1,469,000 SHU
The 7 Pot Primo is very distinctive with its long skinny “tail”.
This pepper was created by horticulturist Troy Primeaux.
Some peppers cultivators have tried to replicate the Primo look by breeding their own peppers to have a long stinger.
When you just look at this pepper, you know it’s going to be INSANELY hot. It coincidentally looks strikingly similar to The Carolina Reaper…
More Primo Info
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6. Trinidad Scorpion “Butch T” 1,463,700 SHU
The Trinidad Scorpion Butch T is a previous Guinness World Record Holder (2011) from Australia.
No doubt it’s insanely hot, but other peppers have been proven to be hotter.
It’s aptly named due to the scorpion stinger found at the tip of the pepper and also the creator, Butch Taylor.
The burn from this pepper is unlike any other.
The Trinidad Scorpion Butch T pepper burns like you swallowed a 1,000 suns.More Butch T Info
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7. Naga Viper 1,349,000 SHU
Naga Viper is an extremely rare pepper cultivated in the UK. Hybrid of many different peppers and years of cross pollination created this variety of “Super HOT” pepper.
It was never fully stabilized before being released so pod variation is expected.
More Naga Viper Info
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8. Ghost Pepper (Bhut Jolokia) 1,041,427 SHU
The Ghost Pepper is the most famous “Super Hot” due to the amount of press it has received in the past.
It exploded in popularity on YouTube and other social sites where pepperheads ate whole Ghost Peppers as part of a challenge.
This is the first pepper to scientifically test over 1 million scovilles.
Many mistakenly believe the Ghost Pepper is still the World’s Hottest pepper, this list shows it is far from it.This isn’t 2007. If you have friends that still think the Ghost Pepper is the hottest pepper, share this page with them. However, don’t be fooled by how low this is on the list as it can still bring a grown man to his knees. More Ghost Pepper Info
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Kid swallows ghost pepper, instantly regrets it.
9. 7 Pot Barrackpore ~1,000,000 SHU
The 7 Pot Barrackpore is one of the hottest of the 7 Pot peppers.
This one is from the Town of Chaguanas in Trinidad and Tobago.
Many of these “super hots” come from this region.
More Barrackpore Info
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10. Red Savina Habanero 500,000 SHU
Back in the early years of super hots, the Red Savina Habanero was KING!
It held the title of the World’s Hottest Pepper from 1994 to 2006. 12 Years!
The Red Savina has since been dethroned and many peppers have passed it in heat, but still to this day it is one of my favorite peppers to grow because it has the perfect balance of heat and flavor..
The Red Savina just barely makes the Top 10, but does so in fashion with its great flavor and extreme heat.
More Red Savina Info
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Are you a PepperHead®?
Try growing these Superhot peppers! PepperHead® seeds grow real peppers with real published SHU ratings.
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Honorable Mentions
Lets talk about some upcoming hybrid peppers that show promise. These two hot peppers will be added to the list once their validity has been confirmed.Dragon’s Breath 2,483,584 SHU
There have been recent reports of a Dragon’s Breath pepper claiming to be hotter than the Carolina Reaper.Preliminary testing of the Dragon’s Breath pepper pegs it at 2,483,584 SHU which would blow the Carolina Reaper out of the water.It could be a publicity stunt in which the “news” websites ate up, even claiming Dragon’s Breath could kill you. Technically a pencil can kill you too…
$8.95Read more
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Share this Hottest Pepper List
Been growing peppers for many years, hab & jalapeño. Then around 2012 I got seeds Reapers, Scorpion, Ghost, Savina, ect. This year I have a plant with peppers that should be Reapers but look like Ghost Reapers. How can I have tested, can I send pictures
Take a bite and see how much it hurts.
i agree with you becomes this is throow
Chagaunas when it was named after the town barrackpore please research well
Ghost and habanero was on my table log time but day when I try Carolina Raper moved those two into the shadow
Each day I use it to my dishes
7 pot barrackpore cannot be from the town of Chagaunas when it was named after the town barrackpore please research well our country is little atleast let the infomation be accurate.
Barrackpore is a town in Trinidad and also India.
The ghost pepper is commonly used as everyday household spice in Northeast India. Even as native, I cannot handle the heat.
I just purchased two Carolina reaper plants (babies still). I can’t wait until they get peppers.
My dad bought a bottle of hot sauce called whoop a** it was made of Carolina reaper. He drank a little bit and it burned his mouth so bad. He began sweating immediately and started to lose his voice.
They are awesome mate. I have one fully grown and planted seeds from it and have a baby one growing as well. The flavour is awesome till the heat kicks in. Hahahaha
Well…Indian Food should be hotter and have more heat, then, no?!?!
I tried ghost pepper 1 full pepper I can handle the heat but my stomach get sick till next day.I wish to try Carolina reapper ..one day
Want updates on the hottest of hot please! Love hot peppers ❤️
what is the Scoville heat unit for a regular pepper?
none, its called a bell pepper, but it still has some heat.
Bell peppers are sweet with no heat but pablano peppers have a little heat
i dont think he was talking about bell pepper
Well, what do you think he was talking about? In Australia, what Americans call Bell Peppers and what British people call simply Peppers (red or green or yellow) are called Capsicums. In Australia if you walked into a supermarket and asked for peppers they would direct you to the salt and spices aisle. So, without knowing the original poster’s origin, we can only speculate what he meant. “Pepper” to me (an American) means Black Peppercorn, but that’s not actually a pepper, and qualifying it not only “REGULAR pepper”, but also as “‘A’ regular pepper” even further separates my belief he was talking about black pepper. Black Peppercorn gets its heat from piperine (of which it contains about 4.6%), which is about 1% as hot as pure capsaicin. On the scoville scale, piperine is about 100,000SR, but from my short research on the answer, there doesn’t appear to be one a defined specifically for Black Peppercorn. That said, I speculate the original poster was indeed inquiring about bell peppers.
The article is about spicy peppers containing capsicum, not bell peppers or peppercorn, so the original poster was referring to the common jalapeño pepper. You obviously were preoccupied or just wasn’t using your brain when you copy/pasted your research into this thread. Arrogant prick!
P.e. regular pepperoncino in Italy could be something around 7000 scovilles
Would I be able to put the peppers in cheese? It´s for an experiment.
I use the reaper pepper in cheese to make spicy cheese sauce one pepper for one blender batch
I would imagine it depends on the specific pepper variety. Our local meat locker (common mid-west combination business that processes (butchers), stores, & sells various types of meat (i.e., pork, beef, venison, etc.) and carries a number of cheeses. A long time favorite is “pepper cheese” which I think has jalapenos in it & is a good starter for spicy hot cheese. Their newest addition (about a year ago) is ghost pepper cheese, which I love but is admittedly the spiciest cheese I have ever run across
Spice goes well with cheese in my opinion. Cheese containing peppers is sold commercially. One example is pepperjack cheese
I still love the ghost pepper, chop em up with Hawaiian white onions and cilantro bath in coconut oil n sauteed with johnsonville bratwurst and mmmm mmmmm mmm
That sounds great, but I do the same with a home made patty, consisting of ground pork, top sirloin and lamb!!! Trust me, it’s a great change for anyone’s palate! The mixture is of corse mixed with other different spices (secret), to this famous patty. I sometimes add veal to the barrage of ground meats, which takes the combination of meats to a different level! Sells out every day at my restaurant!
I was wondering if the pepperhead challenge is still going on for the carolina reaper? but my problem is that i am only 15 so i’m disappointed that i can’t do it yet and sadly in 3 years the challenge will be over
You can still have one you just need parental permission
Which of these peppers would you recommend growing personally???
red ghost chilies do surprisingly well here in Iowa z5, huge productive plants. the yellow ghosts have a very fruity odd flavor, but the flavor of red and green too for ghost bhut jokokias are amazing to grow
Could you show new possible hottest pepers like new breeds maybe coming
So my dad grow peppers and hes trying ti make a new one and tips on growing them faster
Ever hear of chili piquin and where it rates on the heat scale?
30,000–60,000 SHU
So is mustered moruga brain pepper x?
It would be very helpful if you posted the SHU for all peppers you sell.
We do!
I have the same question about over-wintering my Carolina Reaper plants. I did this last year and with 7 plants and every last one of them exploded with peppers this year. On 3 plants alone, I got over 85 peppers. Was wondering if I do this again with they continue to produce next year? And does the Scoville scale increase?
Sandy,
You can overwinter pepper plants year after year! It’s not unusual for them to live 5-10 years or more! This is a great way to increase your harvest by skipping the juvenile growing stages. This is especially useful in cold climates with short growing seasons.
Check out our overwintering section of our ultimate hot pepper grow guide
https://pepperhead.com/growing-hot-peppers/#Overwintering_Hot_Pepper_Plants
Also, the scoville rating will remain the same.
I will start by eating Red Savina Habanero and work my way up until I taste the Carolina Reaper. #BelieveThat
I love peppers.. I’ve ONLY eaten Habaneros. Not the Red Savina Habaneros. But, I’m looking forwad to try the Red Savina Habanero and the 7 Pot Barrackpore and, I will work my way ☝ to the Carolina Reaper..
Maricela,
The Red Savina Habanero has excellent flavor and heat that blows away standard habaneros. I highly recommend growing this pepper.
The Pepper X seems interesting. by the way do you have a list of the spiciest extracts in the world?
I’m over-wintering my ghost bush indoors and then bringing it out in the spring. Anyone know how long these plants will keep producing? Does the heat change as they get older? Just curious.
The heat does not change with age and they can live 10 years or longer with proper care if protected from freezing temperatures.
Just looking at them is freaking me out lol
I am a pepperhead and I eat ghost peppers and Carolina reapers every day, love them!
Geesh how do people eat this stuff? I’m scared to eat a jalapeño!
I’ve really turned on to my Ghost Peppers. I’ve always just bought the pre-started ones in the little plastic pots (Georgia, U.S.A.) by a huge company over here (maybe world wide?) named “Bonnie”. Bonnie gets their little seedling starts out for sale in all kinds of hardware and feed/seed stores all over the place. I think I bought this year’s Red Ghost from “ACE Hardware”. Anyway, this year my plant has gone NUTS, and so I feel horrible letting all the pods go to waste. So I’ve started eating more of them than I’ve ever fooled with in the past 4 years that I’ve been growing these things… It started off as a joke or a novelty, but I’m fast becoming a ghosty lover!
Here’s this year’s (2020) plant that I grew. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=epqvt6g69tk
Them peppers spicy
I’m making it my life’s mission to eat all the peppers mentioned. God bless peppers!!!!
Anyone ever have a jalapeño that seemed as hot or hotter than a habanero? My wife seems to find them at the local “ethnic” foods stores. Many of them are about where you’d expect a jalapeño to be, heat wise, with the occasional outlier that surprises.
Absolutely! The heat of a pepper ranges wildly, even within the same exact species and same seed stock. SHU are estimates and actual heat can vary.
The growing conditions (temperature, water, soil and sun) affect the heat of a pepper just as much as genetics. It is totally possible to have a Jalapeno hotter than a habanero.
Thank you for confirming that…we had Jalapeños grown in very sandy soil during a dry summer and they were amazingly hot.
Thank you but I heard that there is even a spicier pepper than Carolina reaper here these peppers name dragons breath pepper x and the finale is pepperhead ok that one was a joke lol bu the real one which is hotter than the Carolina reaper it is eating on the edge
Everyone bragging about how these aren’t hot is boring. You don’t need to tell everyone. Keep it to yourself. No one is impressed with a random comment of someone they don’t know.
Most annoying thing about people who like hot things is how they tell people and act like it ain’t hot.
If you are referring to my comment that’s not what I meant. When you first eat the pepper it doesn’t smack you in the mouth like a lot of peppers do for the first few seconds, but then it just starts burning hotter than anything I’ve ever had. Sorry if I came across as some lame pepper comment guy. I’m just letting folks know these peppers are for real and to be careful with them if you are not used to dealing with the super hots.
I grew Carolina Reapers AND Trinidad Scorpions this year. These peppers are no joke people. I put a Reaper in some scrambled eggs and ate a whole pepper (my test for pepper flavor and strength) and I was feeling the burn for at least an hour afterward. They start out not so hot then build until it’s almost too hot. I am dehydrating them now and will create a power or shake I can use sparingly on food. Awesome peppers!!!
Thats almost exactly what I do. I harvest the Reapers in volume and low bake them for a grinder or powder shaker. Eggs seem to be the best test. Taking what I can handle into account, about a tablespoon of coconut oil and a diced pepper to simmer will release flavor and oil into the air. Then I add a couple of eggs to cook thoroughly and taste while comparing flavor to aroma. I have had reapers, jalapenos and ghost peppers this year all with good returns and no unexpected exit strategies…
Yes coconut oil brings the flavor out of all 10 peppers. Very delicious
I ate some Carolina Reapers a month ago, and it was incredible. I really loved the initial fruity taste, which was very surprising, but then the fire after was extremely intense, and the heat lasted for ages, my tongue went numb for some time. However, after the heat subsided I had some more. I think I have issues! These peppers are not for the faint-hearted, though. I have a couple of 7 Pot Douglah plants growing and I can’t wait to harvest them, again I love the taste!
Hay um will i die from eating a Carolina Reaper pepper if so let me know
Nice list. Will use it to search around my area for them.