(C) D T Brown

If you like your Chilli con carne extra spicy and like your vindaloo at atomic levels of hotness, you may want to grow this new chilli this year. Bred in South Carolina, this vicious little brute has beaten the previous holder of the Guinness World Record, ‘Bhut Jolokia’ as the world’s hottest chilli.

Heat in chillies is measured on the Scoville scale. Sweet bell peppers have a rating of 0 and Tabasco sauce is 2,500 – 5,000. Poblano and peppadew chillies are no more than 3,500 and jalapenos measure a maximum of 10,000. The traditional ‘hot’ habanero and Scotch bonnets, which are usually as hot as anyone can stand, are no more than 350,000 Scoville heat units.

But the new ‘Carolina Reaper’ makes these seem like sweets! It has an average and official world-beating rating of 1, 569,300 and some have been tested at 2,200,000 – yes more than two million! To put that into context, law-enforcement pepper spray is less than one million!

So there are health warnings with this chilli, including advice that the chillies should never be eaten raw and the plants and fruits never handled without gloves!

Sounds like something to put in your window box for home security!

A packet of ten seeds costs £3.99 from DT Brown – http://www.dtbrownseeds.co.uk/Vegetable-Seeds-1/Pepper-Seed_2/Pepper-Chilli-Carolina-Reaper-

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