Trinidad Moruga Scorpion

The Trinidad Moruga Scorpion took the Guinness World Record for hottest chilli in February 2012, when researchers at New Mexico State University's Chile Pepper Institute confirmed an average heat of 1.2 million SHU and individual pods exceeding 2 million. The variety dethroned the Bhut Jolokia, which had held the record since 2007. The pepper takes its name from Moruga, a small fishing village on Trinidad's southern coast where it has been cultivated for generations as a household garden chilli. Trinidad and Tobago has a long superhot tradition - the island's climate, soil, and longstanding cultivation of Capsicum chinense varieties has produced a remarkable concentration of high-SHU peppers, including the Trinidad Scorpion family, the 7 Pot family, and various local crosses. The defining shape - a knobbly pod with a small pointed tail at the base, resembling a scorpion's sting - gave the broader scorpion family its name. The tail is functional in flavour terms too: the seed-and-placenta-rich tail concentrates the highest capsaicin levels, meaning the heat builds slowly and intensely as you eat through the pod toward the tail. Its record was held for less than a year. By 2013, the Carolina Reaper had taken the title, but the Moruga Scorpion remains a benchmark among growers for its combination of extreme heat with genuinely complex fruity flavour - which is why it still appears prominently in superhot sauces despite no longer holding the record.