In late 2023, Ed Currie's PepperX was crowned the new hottest pepper in the world, with an astounding Scoville heat rating of 2,693,000 (compared to the Carolina Reaper's previous 1,600,0002,200,000). So logically, my first instinct was to use chemistry to make it over five times hotter!

UPDATE: the capsaicin giveaway has officially ended, there are no more samples available!

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Credit goes to ‪@FirstWeFeast‬ for some of the pepperrelated video content used:    • Pepper X: Sean Evans, Chili Klaus & S...  

Some footage from ‪@NileRed‬ and ‪@ShawnWoodsMousetrapMonday‬ was also used:
   • Turning plastic gloves into hot sauce  
   • Does The World's Spiciest Pure Capsai...  

Also, somebody actually tested the Scoville rating of the Hot Ones Xperience sauce. As it turns out, it might be way less spicy than I thought: only about 61,000 SHU! Its possible my bottle was a bit hotter, since it felt worse than the sauce I made exclusively from Carolina Reapers and ghost peppers, but I really can't be sure. It does kind of check out though: if the sauce really was over 2,000,000 Scoville, I should've gotten way more capsaicin out...up to FORTY TIMES MORE! Several GRAMS of the hot stuff. Regardless, the capsaicin I did obtain still should've been fairly pure and from Pepper X.

And be sure to check out ‪@TechIngredients‬ video on making a superhot sauce from pepper extract! He didn't purify his capsaicin with chromatography or liquidliquid extraction, but he definitely came away with a more edible (and similarly spicy) sauce:
   • We made the Spiciest Hot Sauce Ever!?  

WARNING: although everything I do here is legal, some of the content shown on LabCoatz is dangerous and should not be repeated! This procedure was fairly tame, but in general, it's not a very good idea to taste or eat things that have been in contact with chemicals or labware. I took all of the necessary precautions to remain safe!

Also, to avoid legal trouble, I feel like I should elaborate on what I said towards the end of this video about "cooking a legal version of meth" in a future video: the "legal meth" is a safe, offtheshelf cold medicine called propylhexedrine, and although its molecule is shaped almost exactly like methamphetamine's molecule, it is not addictive and is generally not used recreationally due to it's unpleasant side effects. It can be bought at almost any American store as "Benzedrex" without even needing an ID, so me making a small amount for demonstration purposes should be completely fine.

0:00 Introduction
0:34 Project backstory
1:44 Prepping the sauce
2:45 Ethanol extraction
4:34 Steam distillation
5:59 Column chromatography
9:06 Acid/base extraction
9:55 The tasting lineup
11:32 Taste test: Louisiana Hot Sauce (2000 Scoville)
12:58 Taste test: homemade Reaper sauce (~1,000,000 Scoville)
14:11 Taste test: Last Dab Xperience (2,000,000+ Scoville...or 61,000? Idk)
16:02 Taste test: Habanero pepper (100,000300,000 Scoville)
18:37 Taste test: PURIFIED CAPSAICIN (15,000,000+ Scoville)
22:55 DO YOU WANT SOME?
23:27 Conclusion