Ghost Pepper vs Trinidad Scorpion

Two landraces, two continents, one species. The Ghost Pepper, Bhut Jolokia, is from Assam and its neighboring states in northeastern India. The Trinidad Scorpion is from Trinidad and Tobago, named for the tail that curls off the bottom of the pod. Both are Capsicum chinense, and both reached New Mexico State University's Chile Pepper Institute the same way, as seed sent in from abroad: 2001 for the Bhut Jolokia, 2008 for the Trinidad Scorpion, the latter from the Caribbean Agricultural Research and Development Institute.

The Ghost Pepper got there first and got the first record. Bosland and Baral's 2007 HortScience paper reported 1,001,304 SHU from a 2005 replicated trial, the first pepper measured past one million, and Guinness World Records recognized it as the world's hottest that year. The same paper found C. frutescens DNA markers in the Bhut Jolokia, which puts a natural cross between species somewhere in its history. That is a real botanical difference. Bosland's 2012 follow-up placed the Bhut Jolokia off on its own between C. annuum and the other chinense varieties because of it, while the Trinidad Scorpion grouped tightly with the other Trinidad landraces, the 7-pot Jonah and the Douglah, at a similarity of 0.94.

The 2012 trial is the head-to-head test. Bosland, Coon and Reeves grew both at Las Cruces in 2011 and measured a mean of 1,019,687 SHU for the Bhut Jolokia and 1,029,271 for the Trinidad Scorpion. The difference was not statistically significant. Individual plants ranged from 279,315 to 1,578,548 for the Bhut Jolokia and from 801,180 to 1,392,452 for the Trinidad Scorpion. The Trinidad Moruga Scorpion, a separate landrace, was the one that beat the Bhut Jolokia by a significant margin at 1,207,764, with two plants over two million. A different Scorpion selection, Butch T, held the Guinness record from March 2011 at 1,463,700 SHU until the Carolina Reaper took it in November 2013.

On the tongue they diverge. The Ghost Pepper is slow, arriving several seconds late and then climbing. The Scorpion is faster and stays longer, and tasters describe more fruit under the burn. The Bhut Jolokia has centuries of use dried and ground in Assamese and Naga food. The Scorpion's history is shorter and more commercial, a Trinidadian market pepper that became a hot-sauce headline. The Scorpion name has since been attached to crosses that share nothing with it but the tail.

Sources

• Bosland and Baral 2007, HortScience 42(2): 'Bhut Jolokia', the World's Hottest Known Chile Pepper is a Putative Naturally Occurring Interspecific Hybrid (doi:10.21273/HORTSCI.42.2.222)
• Bosland, Coon and Reeves 2012, HortTechnology 22(4): 'Trinidad Moruga Scorpion' Pepper is the World's Hottest Measured Chile Pepper at More Than Two Million Scoville Heat Units (doi:10.21273/HORTTECH.22.4.534)
• Guinness World Records, December 2013: November, the world's hottest chilli and the longest basketball shot