This Carolina Reaper Ice Cream Is 500 Times Hotter than Tabasco
Back at the height of the Sriracha trend, people were putting the spicy condiment on just about everything—popcorn, hummus, chicken wings, deviled eggs. Hot sauce had its renaissance, and food hasn’t been the same since. For proof that chilis are still one of the—ahem—hottest ingredients in the food world, look no further than Aldwych Café, in Glasgow, Scotland.
In honor of Valentine’s Day, the shop created its Respiro Del Diavolo dessert, or Breath of the Devil. It’s ice cream infused with Carolina Reaper peppers (What’s the connection to Valentine’s Day? Just that the ice cream is red). The ice cream is so spicy that in order to have a taste, you have to be at least 18, and you have to sign a waiver acknowledging that consuming the peppers might cause serious injury. The shop also requires that employees wear gloves while handling it.
The shop owner’s brother, Lee Bandoni, told Fox News that “the recipe is very secret,” but that the name for the ice cream comes from a tradition in Italy, wherein families that made ice cream would meet on the Devil’s Bridge and discuss the year’s business.
Badoni described the pepper’s flavor as a “thermal nuclear explosion in your mouth.” He says that the shop had to clear the ice cream with a “standards agency” before legally being allowed to sell the ice cream that uses it.
The Guinness Book of World Records named the Carolina Reaper is the hottest pepper in the world in 2013, but a newly engineered Pepper X might be even hotter. The ‘world’s hottest chip’ is also made with the Carolina Reaper peppers, but it’s only sold in single serving packets.
If you happen to be both very brave and in Glasgow this month, Aldwych Café will be selling the Respiro Del Diavolo until just after Valentine’s Day, but a word to the wise: A trip to the hospital isn’t exactly a romantic night out.
