The heat begins to cool down about half an hour after starting to eat. Your upper body might break into a sweat and your heart might beat faster when you eat a ghost pepper. Eating just a small piece can also make your eyes water. Your lips, gums and inside of your mouth will likely sting quite painfully as well. At the very least, youвЂ™ll experience a painful, stinging sensation on your tongue when you eat a ghost pepper. However, about 45 seconds after putting in your mouth, the fiery sensation starts and continues to intensify for a further 10 to 15 minutes.

In comparison: that is four hundred (400!) times hotter than Tabasco.Д®ating a ghost pepper is tricky because when you first put it in your mouth, it has a sweet flavor. The orange and red little lady rated over 1 million Scoville heat units, a range that identifies how spicy a pepper is. In fact, from 2007 until 2010 Guinness World Records stated that the ghost pepper was the hottest. Since the pepper is easy to grow and to cross breed, many varieties of these ladies popped up around the world with the ghost pepper being currently one of the hottest varieties on this little blue planet. In some places people liked their food hotter than elsewhere. She showed up in kitchens, wrapping cuisines around her delicious little finger from Morocco to Hungary, and India to China. When ColumbusвЂ™s ships brought them back to Spain, traders spread them around the world and the pepper became an instant hit everywhere. He was a bit off the mark as the world soon figured out, but the names had stuck even though the native peoples of the Americas had been growing and enjoying sweet and hot peppers for an estimated 7,000 years. When Columbus tasted the small, hot red вЂњberriesвЂќ he found on his Caribbean voyages, he believed he had reached India where Europeans obtained black pepper and called them red pepper. They are not related to that other pepper, Piper nigrum, you grind on your food. They are members of the nightshade family, which also includes potatoes, tomatoes and eggplant. A term that derives from the Greek word kapto, which means вЂto gulpвЂ™. Peppers, whether sweet or hot, are members of the plant genus capsicum. Some of these ladies are hotter than then the others though, and some are almost too hot to handle. Pure veggie eye candies, these ladies in their bright colored dresses are an easy sell. Just the way you like it.Д«y Marco Barneveld, Peppers are the belles of the ball at any buffet table. So weвЂ™re going to keep it on the menu just to make sure when regulars come in, they have their favorite drink in their hand.So you like it more than hot? You want the heat of the sun to enter the sanctuary of your vegetable plate? You like it hotter than magma? Meet miss ghost pepper and her fiery friends. The Ghost Pepper Sour is still on the menu, waiting for them. Juliet hosts speaking and networking events for local beer, wine, and distillery producers, and Salchow is looking forward to the return of these events and to welcoming back JulietвЂ™s regulars.

Ross uses a local bottler who works with recycled glass, and then collaborates with a local glass artist to reshape customersвЂ™ empty bottles into vases and carafes. Island GinвЂ™s bottles are thoughtfully designed in the local community. ItвЂ™s fully sustainable as well,вЂќ Salchow says. Island Gin founder and head distiller Andi Ross foraged for ingredients near her home on Great Barrier Island to create her spirit, and also uses Great Barrier manuka honey and bush island honey. The gin in this cocktail, which Salchow enhances with St-Germain, ties into JulietвЂ™s goal of celebrating female distillers and winemakers, as well as using sustainable, local ingredients. Since Wonderfoam is made from the bark of the Quillaja saponaria tree, it is vegan, and a tiny bottle lasts for nearly 400 cocktails. He adds a few drops of Wonderfoam to the Ghost Pepper Sour to create the rich flavor and creamy texture that define a classic sour. Salchow is also enthusiastic about an Australian beverage company named Wonderfoam. ItвЂ™s really a 5вЂ“10 minute spice, so itвЂ™s way more approachable for customers.вЂќ вЂњItвЂ™s not lasting in your mouth for an hour or two. вЂњIt gives you this nice spicy tingle on the lips,вЂќ he says. Eventually, with a combination of cooking techniques, he arrived at the Ghost Pepper Sour. Salchow, who studied mechatronics engineering in Germany, came up with a methodical solution to this problem by simmering different ratios of coconut oil and grapeseed oil with the ghost peppers. The chiliвЂ™s slightly sweet, smoky flavor was worth it.

Though the chocolate ghost pepper was mind-numbingly hot, he was determined to use it as a food or cocktail flavor.

Ghost pepper