Breeding the World’s Hottest Pepper

In the competitive world of hot pepper breeding, one man is smoking the competition. Meet “Smokin’” Ed Currie. He’s the man behind the world’s hottest pepper—the “Carolina Reaper.” For the past three decades, Currie has been pushing the limits of the Scoville scale—breeding hotter and hotter peppers. We went behind the scenes at his South Carolina farm, where he’s bred a number of secret, unreleased specimens that he claims are even hotter than his famous Reaper. You may want to have some milk ready for thi