The Hottest TABASCO® Sauce: How Hot Is Scorpion?
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The hottest TABASCO® sauce is the Scorpion Pepper Sauce. It runs 23,000 to 33,000 Scoville units, which is about ten times the Original Red and roughly three times the Habanero. If you have been circling this bottle wondering whether it is a gimmick, it is not. It is hot.
Where the heat comes from
The sauce is built on the scorpion pepper, which in raw form can measure over a million Scoville units and sits in the same company as the ghost pepper and the Carolina Reaper.
You are not eating the raw pepper, though, and that matters. In the bottle the scorpion is blended with vinegar, sugar, guava, pineapple and a little Original Red. That brings a million-SHU pepper down to something you can actually cook with, while keeping the character of the chili.
How it compares
| Sauce | Scoville (SHU) |
|---|---|
| Original Red | 2,500-5,000 |
| Habanero | 7,000-9,000 |
| Scorpion | 23,000-33,000 |
The rest of the range is in our TABASCO® Scoville scale guide.
What it tastes like
More than people expect. The guava and pineapple arrive first and read as almost sweet, so for a second you think you have got away with it. Then the heat builds, and it keeps building for a while after you have swallowed. That delay is the thing to respect: it is very easy to add a second dash before the first one has landed.
Cooking with it
Think in drops rather than dashes. A 60ml bottle lasts a long time.
- Stirred into chili, curry, stew or a pot of beans, where it disappears into the background and just lifts the whole thing.
- A drop or two through chilaquiles, tacos or salsa.
- In a mango or pineapple salsa, where the fruit in the sauce has something to talk to.
- Mixed into mayo or ketchup, which is the easiest way to make a spicy version of something you already have.
- One drop in a Bloody Mary. One.
Keep milk or yogurt nearby rather than water, because capsaicin does not dissolve in water and dairy actually helps.
Who it suits
If Habanero is already your normal, this is the next step up. If you are still working out whether you like heat at all, start at Chipotle or Original Red and come back to this one later. It also makes an easy present for the person in every family who claims nothing is ever hot enough.
The Scorpion Sauce comes in 60ml and 150ml, and the rest of the unusual flavors are in hard-to-find.