I’ve had a bit of a love affair with hot sauces over the years, and like most things which are not good for you, the more you indulge in them the bigger the hit you want the next time.
Many years ago I tried 15 different hot sauces in one bite. It was damn hot but overall it was fine. Then I tried Australia’s Hottest Hamburger, a challenge I sadly lost, ironically due to the burger making me nauseous more than the heat itself.
For Xmas 2018 my in-laws gave me two hot sauces, the first was:
Darkhorse
Aged 6 Years
Limited Edition
Super Hot Sauce.
An impressive title.
The second came in a smaller black bottle. It’s title simply read:
GOD SLAYER
FUCKING HOT SAUCE
At dinner we were having several kinds of meat so I decided to try these hot sauces out. I asked my 3 year old daughter which one I should try – the tall red and yellow bottle or the little black one.
Unfortunately for me, she picked the little black one.
Now before we continue I should introduce you to something called the Scoville Scale:
The Scoville scale is a measurement of the pungency (spiciness or “heat”) of chili peppers and other spicy foods, as recorded in Scoville Heat Units (SHU) based on the concentration of capsaicinoids, among which capsaicin is the predominant component.
Now to give you an idea of spiciness – your average tabasco hot sauce comes in at around 3,500 SHU. The Pepper Spray used by police to incapacitate people comes in at 5,000,000 SHU.
I have been unable to find a SHU listing for the Darkhorse. But God Slayer comes in at a whopping 6,400,000 SHU. That makes it (besides limited edition novelty releases) the third hottest commercially available hot sauce on the planet!
Of course, I did not know this at the time.
So I got some chicken and liberally coated it with God Slayer. Took a big old bite.
The effect was instantaneous. My lips, tongue and mouth in general were on spice-driven fire! If it had been a cartoon flames would have been shooting out of my mouth! I urged my brother-in-law to fetch some milk and spent the next several minutes using milk and bread and beer to try and put out the flames in my mouth.
After about 20 minutes I was OK and decided to try the Darkhorse Super Hot Sauce. Put some liberally on my pork and took a big bite. Like when I did the 15 hot sauces challenge and the chilli beer I had after tasted like water, this time the God Slayer had seared my tastebuds so much that I couldn’t even taste the Darkhorse. I had another helping 5 minutes later and found the same. So at this stage I had devoured 3 helpings of hot sauce in 45 minutes, one of them the 3rd hottest sauce on the planet.
The Effects
*At first I was fine
*Then my belly started to gurgle
*After that for about half an hour I became flatulent, to the amusement of myself if not others
*After that I became somewhat nauseous
*After that I felt quite nauseous so went and lay on the couch while the rest of the family continued to enjoy the Xmas festivities outside. Think I even had a little nap.
*Went back to my mother-in-laws to bed at around 10.30pm. Felt a bit nauseous still and had a tiny bit of a sweat on but nothing major.
*1am: Wake up and the backs of my hands were on fire! Looking at them I was surprised the flesh wasn’t blistering! Went and ran them under cold water.
*3am-7am: Up and down all night feeling nauseous, having hot flashes in my hands and feeling like I needed to defecate but couldn’t.
*8am: Wake up to nausea. Go and sit on toilet. Diarrhea finally hits and the song ‘ring of fire’ pops into my head as my body purges itself of molten lava from my rectum for at least half an hour.
8.30am: Start to panic. Am supposed to be taking my son and his friends to see the Bumblebee Movie for his birthday soon. Tell my wife she may have to go in my stead. She brings me water, pain killers and stomach pills for me to devour.
9.30am: Pills kick in. The ordeal subsides.
So it was a fairly horrible experience in the end. It turns out the heat in my hands was due to me drinking beer after the God Slayer. It essentially diluted it and put it into my bloodstream where it traveled around trying to find a place to vent the heat. As I was wearing pajamas the only parts of my body exposed and cool were my face and hands and thankfully it went to my hands.
So did this all happen purely due to the God Slayer or did the two helpings of Darkhorse contribute? So sigh…. I am going to have to test this so this blog post might have a sequel down the line. In the meantime, for the next few weeks at least, my mouth (and subsequently my colon) might give the hot sauce a wide berth.
Got a hot sauce experience of your own? Would love to read it in the comments section below!
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