Pepper of the Month: Pepper X, the Pepper That Quietly Dethroned the Reaper
In October 2023, Guinness World Records certified a new hottest pepper on Earth at 2,693,000 Scoville Heat Units. The previous record holder, the Carolina Reaper, averaged around 1.64 million SHU. The new champion — Pepper X — was bred by the same man who created the Reaper: Ed Currie of PuckerButt Pepper Company in Fort Mill, South Carolina.
Currie spent more than ten years developing it. He started with a pepper sent to him by a fan in Michigan and crossed it through multiple generations with several other superhots before stabilizing the variety. He kept the program quiet for most of the development cycle. Pepper X was the open secret that the superhot community had been hearing about for years before the certification finally came down.
What makes it different
The Reaper hits fast. Front of the tongue, immediate, sharp. Pepper X is slower and meaner — the burn sets in across the back of the throat and the soft palate, and it stays there. Reports from people who’ve eaten the fresh pod consistently describe effects lasting two hours or more, with a sustained intensity that the Reaper’s quick spike doesn’t have.
Under the heat, the flavor is different too. Where the Reaper has fruity, almost sweet notes alongside the burn, Pepper X is more earthy and vegetal. It tastes like a pepper instead of a candy with capsaicin sprinkled on top.
The structural difference matters more than the flavor difference, though. Pepper X has thick walls. The placenta — the internal membrane where capsaicin is concentrated — is unusually dense. For commercial extraction, that’s a significant advantage. A pound of Pepper X pods yields substantially more usable mash than a pound of Reapers.
Why this matters for the industry
Pepper X is the first superhot bred specifically with commercial hot sauce production in mind. The pure-novelty era — peppers bred to win a Guinness certification and then sit in a curio jar — has been waning for a while. The makers who built businesses around superhots in the 2010s have been asking for varieties that actually work in production: thick walls, consistent heat, reasonable yield, manageable harvest windows. Pepper X delivers on those.
Currie has not released seeds to the public. The only legal way to taste Pepper X is through three sauces produced under license by PuckerButt: The Last Dab Apollo, The Last Dab X, and Pepper X. The first two are tied to the partnership with Hot Ones. If you see Pepper X mash being offered by anyone else, it’s almost certainly mislabeled.
For chiliheads
If you’ve eaten a Reaper and want to know how Pepper X compares — it’s not just hotter. It’s a different experience. Plan the timing. Don’t do it on a work night. Drink whole milk or eat full-fat yogurt within reach. The come-up is slower than the Reaper, which fools people into taking a second bite before the first one has hit. Do not do that.
For everyone else: the existence of Pepper X is more interesting than eating one. It marks a real shift in what the superhot scene is for. Heat as theater is winding down. Heat as ingredient is winding up. Pepper X is the bridge.