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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.
Order all Top 10 Hottest Pepper Seeds and save 30% over purchasing individually!
We are so excited about our brand new product, the PepperHead Powder Sampler Kit! Its the perfect gift for spicy lovers.
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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…
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Share this Hottest Pepper List
i used to eat them till i carried some in my back pocket and they broke and a small itch started on my rear, i scratched abit not knowing it was the pepper,it accelerated itchy, awound bruish emerged, sweet sweet i cried,when it could not go away,i discored it was the pepper, i laugh to date till tears roll when i remember how nice that was.
Have you ever heard of a chili called diavolito, and if so, how scu units is it, thank you
What about the Dragon’s Breath pepper from the U.K.? Not sure its hotter than the Reaper but it still should be top 2
Even after washing hands after dealing with all these peppers – don’t rub your eyes!!!
This is very true! Be very careful handling fresh or even dried superhot peppers. The oils are very difficult to remove from your hands, even with multiple hand washings.
When de-seeding these peppers we use two layers of chemical resistant nitrile gloves. After 1 hr of handling, the oils will penetrate the top glove and needs to be replaced. These peppers are no joke. Regular latex gloves do not provide enough protection.
Keep in touch ,this past summer I grew a dozen different kinds of peppers already but I just received my box of peppers from Amazon, and I am going start growing year round hydroponic, I know that I received at least 9 out of 10 hottest peppers already and I will graft a couple different ones, to find out what it takes to make a new even hotter pepper, I don’t mind sending you some of my extra pepper seeds, but the best seed is a fully ripe fruit, might be closer to the end of 2019 before I share.
Beyond me WHY would you even WANT to eat these hot peppers?? You only get burning heat with really no flavour cause you can’t get past the burning.
I mainly don’t eat peppers constantly but just in my chili and breakfast burritos, I have found that I have went from 260 lbs to nearly 200 lbs and I am disabled and don’t get much exercise, trust me it works ( but mainly hobby garden)
Some guy on a Facebook group claims he discovered the hottest new pepper called Pepper X at 3.18 million Scoville units. Verification?
I do not think you should listen to him. We have already discovered that Pepper. And he did NOT claim that pepper that he found it. Just my addivce is to not listen to him.
I am an American living in s.Italy. They love hot peppers here. But I grow reapers and 7 pot chocolate. They will not touch them. Big babies. HaHa.
I don’t want a TShirt it’d be nice for 1-2 Carolina reapers and a Ghost pepper or 2 to make some killer chili I love that stuff.
My 11 year old ate som ghost pepper aioli from stonewall kitchen and was sweating for a half hour
I’m currently growing ghost peppers in my back yard; the biggest one just turned red, and it’s actually kind of beautiful. I’m too scared right now to eat it, or even touch it. Sure looks nice, though.
Pepper X?
My uncle tried the dregons breath pepper he couldn’t even take one bite the second the pepper touched his mouth he through the pepper across the room it was that spicy
i have ate a dragons breath pepper but i couldnt even feel the heat…. i wish i could for added flavor and i am 12 years old
Somewhere there is a vid of me eating a Butch T whole. Burned the hell outta me! Also had a sandwich challenge at a bbq joint…I’m in east Tennessee …with ghosts, habaneros, scorpions and another I cant remember. All the peppers has been soaked in some of Popcorn Sutton’s moonshine! Delicious and heartburn to the max! Allen Howell if Dixie BBQ gets the credit.
I have eaten from reaper, moruga scorpion, Douglah. The heat is massive but the trick is cut off small fragments of these chillies and eat it with a good portion of food ( great on hotdogs, burgers, melted cheese etc) this way you get to enjoy the flavor that is hidden beneath the burn. You will have to visit the toilet several times afterwards lol.
Love this site, hotter the better!
I bought 6 Bhut jlookia plants. One transformed into a different pepper plant. I suspect it is one of the plants that was bread into the Bhut jolokia, I am trying to identify it.
Love the top 10
I have the reaper, the Trinidad moruga scorpion, and the bhut jolokia ghost growing outdoors in an upside down planter and I can’t wait to feed them to my friends at the beginning of the school year. I did it last year with just the ghost and it was a lot of fun. We also made death wings with a pepper paste using the ghost peppers.
I make a Madras but swap out some of the more mild pepper for cayenne and the Carolina Reaper, traditional flavour ( recipe book is old and well regarded ) but with a modern mega punch! Seriously good curry. Better flavour than vindaloo or phal with heat that puts them both to shame. Of course you could just buy a jar of Madras and chuck in some reaper but I like being making from scratch, across several makes, the seperate spices work out much cheaper per meal
Do all Molokai peppers have seeds
I would like to see some of the known hotter peppers get tested. Chocolate bhutla DM, elysium oxide scotch bonnet, white hot peppers Leviathan Gnarly Scorpion to name a few.
What super hot pepper would you recommend growing in a short season area? I live in western New York.
We planted Carolina reaper, Trinidad Sporpion, Ghost, and habanero peppers, all in big pots. At the end of the season last year ( oct.. NY) we had tons of flowers but cold weather was closing in. We brought all the pepper pots in doors, w/o cutting back.. and to our surprise we had peppers ripening all winter! We took our plants outside in May and they are now 9 ft high and continue to produce beautiful peppers that we never stop pickling! Do we have an angel on our backs? Or is this normal? Trying to send pics
No one knows about the original taste of Naga vipers it’s superb hot and eating spicy is good for breathing.
I just received an excellent education on hot peppers! I have been making habanero & (recently) ghost pepper dill pickles & have grown to really, really enjoy them. I have also had a nibble of a ghost pepper. So I have experienced the super heat. I doubt that I could eat a whole ghost pepper straight up. However, I think I would like to try the hotter peppers, perhaps, in my home made dill pickle concoction. Thank you for the valuable & most interesting info…