The World's Hottest Hot Sauces

For those who are fans of fiery food, hot sauce is an indispensable condiment. Beyond the mild kick of Tabasco, Frank's and Cholula lies a huge ecosystem of intensely spicy hot sauces and their fiercely devoted fans, known as chiliheads. If you fall into that group, this list is for you, because these are the world's hottest hot sauces. 

To find the hottest hot sauces on the face of the earth, 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 made from peppers at least 125 times hotter than a jalapeño, ranked from hot to hottest.

Melinda's The Ghost has something sweet to it — carrots, papaya, lime and passion fruit — but the bhut jolokia chile (or ghost pepper) has a brutal bite. At 1 million Scoville units, this slightly tangy hot sauce brings the heat. One Amazon reviewer thinks it hasn't quite reached the "melt your face" threshold but says it's great with eggs and chili.

The heat in CaJohn's Jolokia also comes from the blazing hot bhut jolokia chile, which hails from Assam, India. It's one of the hottest peppers in the world, bringing this sauce to a scorching 1 million Scoville units. The only other ingredient is vinegar. This is as close as you'll get to the ghost pepper without acquiring the real deal.

Blair's Ultra Death Sauce uses ingredients 900 times hotter than a jalapeño. The 5-ounce bottle contains habanero, cayenne, serrano and ghost peppers, plus salt, vinegar, corn starch, garlic and spices. The makers warn that it should be used sparingly and should not be consumed unless diluted.

The Rapture is coming in hot — at 1.2 million Scoville units, to be exact. This devilish sauce features 66.6% peppers — Trinidad scorpion (16 per bottle), ghost and habanero — and is "known to bring a grown man to tears," according to the brand, Torchbearer. Carrots, mandarin oranges, tomatoes, vinegar, vegetable oil, garlic, sugar and spices round out this recipe. It says "deadly" on the label, so ... be safe.

Crazy Uncle Jester's knows a thing or two about flaming hot sauce. One of the company's spiciest offerings, Scorpion Death March, packs 1.3 million Scoville units. The all-natural, slightly sweet, insanely hot condiment is made from Trinidad scorpion chiles, apple cider vinegar, salt, garlic, onion, light agave syrup, dehydrated fruits and vegetables and a special blend of spices.

Heartbreaking Dawn's Reapercussion is a bottle of pure 7 pot primo — a rare Louisiana-bred cross between Naga Morich and Trinidad 7 pot peppers — with Trinidad scorpion peppers and a touch of apple cider vinegar, garlic, lime and agave. Primo and scorpion, two of the world's hottest peppers, average 1.5 million and 1.2 million Scoville units, respectively. Use sparingly in chili, soup and on tacos.

The only chile used in this sauce by CaJohn's is the 7 pot primo. It is extremely hot, measuring in at nearly 1.5 million Scoville units. All you need is a few drops to add flavor (and heat) to soup, chili, burritos and more.

Pepper Palace named this hot sauce after the scorpion because, at 2 million Scoville units, it stings. Underneath the burn, you'll find sweet tones courtesy of fresh carrots, onions and lime juice, and savory garlic.

The Last Dab XXX is the hottest sauce on First We Feast's web series "Hot Ones," hosted by Sean Evans, who interviews celebrities while they eat increasingly spicy chicken wings. This lethal condiment has a rating of more than 2 million Scoville units due to three different strains of Smokin' Ed Currie's hybrid pepper X. The recipe also features distilled vinegar, ginger, turmeric, coriander, cumin and dry mustard. If you're not used to this level of heat, take it easy. If you are, try it out on German sausage, says one Amazon reviewer.

This sauce is made from the Carolina Reaper and, at 2.2 million Scoville units, it is severely hot. According to the label, the fiery burn lasts more than five minutes. One Amazon customer said it has a decent amount of heat and tastes great like a "tropical day at the beach in South Florida" with "a mojito in hand, just relaxing when the euphoria kicks in." On the contrary, another said he tried one drop on a tortilla chip and "OH MY GOD! VERY VERY HOT... hottest thing I've ever eaten... took a good 20 to 30 minutes to recover." When you purchase this bottle off Amazon, you get six whole dried Carolina Reaper peppers too, so good luck.

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.

Pepper Palace's 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.

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.

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."

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."

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.

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.

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."

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."

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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