The World's Spiciest Hot Sauces

If you use hot sauce on the regular, you know that all your favorite grocery store brands are relatively mild. Frank's (indispensable for Buffalo wings), Cholula, Tabasco, Crystal — the whole gang's here, but none of them are especially face-melting. But true chiliheads know there's more to life than pepper sauce that doesn't make you sweat. So grab a gallon of milk and proceed with caution, because these are the spiciest hot sauces in the world.

Methodology

To find the world's spiciest hot sauces, we searched hot sauce shops and wholesalers, then looked at how spicy each bottle was in Scoville units, the standard unit for spiciness. A jalapeño, for example, ranges from 2,500 to 8,000 Scoville units, and habaneros generally range from 100,000 to 350,000. The following list highlights products ranked from hot to hottest.

#10 Reaper Squeezins: 2.2 million Scoville units

PuckerButt Pepper Company is home to the world's hottest pepper, the Carolina reaper, created by Smokin' Ed Currie. The brand's spiciest and "most dangerous" sauce, Reaper Squeezins, is 92% Carolina reaper peppers, plus vinegar. It's painfully hot with "amazing heat and incredible taste," according to one reviewer.

#9 LD50 Hot Sauce: 3 million Scoville units

LD50 uses four of the hottest peppers in the world — habanero, scorpion, reaper and ghost — plus extract. It's piping hot. In fact, the name is an homage to the median lethal dose required to kill half the test population, which is, in this case, your taste buds.

#8 The Hottest Sauce in the Universe 2nd Dimension: 3.5 million Scoville units

While it's not quite the hottest sauce in the universe, it's fairly close. The people at Pepper Palace make each batch with 40 pounds of ghost peppers, clocking in at 3.5 million Scoville units. That's 700 times spicier than regular Tabasco.

#7 Z Nothing Beyond Extremely Hot Sauce: 4 million Scoville units

This lovely concoction, ominously dubbed Nothing Beyond, starts with papaya, guava, pineapple, banana and passion fruit, and is then kicked up about 4 million notches by the addition of habaneros and pure capsaicin extract. One Amazon reviewer says it's "extremely hot with a very small amount on the tongue, face and hands tingling and partially numb, inner ear also slightly tingling, amazing endorphin rush."

#6 Meet Your Maker Retribution Sauce: 5 million Scoville units

Heavenly Heat makes Meet Your Maker Retribution Sauce with a blend of 5 million-Scoville-unit ghost pepper extract, fresh ghost peppers and dried ground ghost peppers. Hauntingly enough, it even comes in a coffin-shaped box. Use sparingly, as just three drops will add a huge dose of heat to eight quarts of chili. Don't be like this person on Reddit, who put three drops on one taco, making it the "single spiciest mistake of my life" even though they will "probably do it again, for science and stuff."

#5 The End Hot Sauce: 6 million Scoville units

Well, if the name of this one doesn't terrify you, perhaps the product description will: "The searing pain felt across your tongue brings tears to your eyes. You cry out for water. The panic sets in. How do I make it stop?!? Why did I do that? I should have listened to the warnings! You swear never again! 5 minutes, 10 minutes, 30 minutes later... The End hasn't ended. (The End still isn't here.) R.I.P. My taste buds." Those brave enough to try this Pepper Palace creation can post their reaction to social media using the hashtag #WallOfFlame for a chance to win $250. It includes vinegar, habanero peppers, Carolina reaper peppers, extract, salt and xanthan gum.

#4 BumbleF***ed Hot Sauce: 6 million Scoville units

This hot sauce was created by a former guitarist for Guns and Roses, Ron "Bumblefoot" Thal, who has an adoration for molten lava-type spice and the rush associated with it. BumbleF***ed has notes of ginger, tropical fruit and ginseng. It even has caffeine. The nuclear-level flavor is led by habanero peppers and capsicum, measuring in at 6 million Scoville.

#3 Get Bitten Black Mamba Six Hot Sauce: 6 million Scoville units

This looks like barbecue sauce, but we can promise you it's much hotter. CaJohn's Get Bitten Black Mamba Six is made with chocolate habaneros, which aren't actually chocolate-flavored and average 425,000 Scoville units. The real heat comes from 6million-Scoville-unit capsaicin extract. The mission? Pain with a never-ending wave of venomous fire. One brave Amazon reviewer says he uses it on breakfast and "if you're tired in the morning, you won't be after eating this stuff."

#2 The Source Hot Sauce: 7.1 million Scoville units

At 7.1 million Scoville, The Source is to be used as a food additive only. It should not be eaten straight under any circumstances. When you don't have any real chilis on hand, one drop of this stuff will bring extreme flavor and heat. It's 1,000 times hotter than a jalapeño, and could land you a visit to the hospital if not used properly. One man said it was so hot he could feel his heartbeat in his tongue, and another called it "death paste."

#1 Mad Dog 357 No. 9 Plutonium: 9 million Scoville units

This hot sauce, currently the hottest available hot sauce on the market, features 60% pure capsicum, which is the purest, hottest, most concentrated pepper extract currently available; essentially, it's just pure, unadulterated heat. It is 9 million Scoville units. The warning on the side says not to consume this product directly, and to use it as a food additive only. There's also a disclaimer on the back that says you're not to sue the company should you experience bodily harm. This blazing hot sauce was inspired by plutonium after all — a radioactive and highly explosive element crucial to atomic bombs. Now that's hot. Can't stand the heat? Cool off with the coldest cities in the world.

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