Paging Art Scott

World's hottest chilli grown at Lake Macquarie farm: "A FARM in Lake Macquarie is growing what may be the world's hottest strain of chillies, but preparing them for the public is a task akin to chemical warfare.

The variety, bright red and about the size of a dollar coin, is called the Trinidad Scorpion Butch T.

Its grower, Marcel de Wit, of the Chilli Factory in Morisett, sent samples for chemical analysis to ascertain just how it measured up.

The answer was stratospheric, reported EML Chem in Melbourne, where normal duties can include working with explosives.

Chilli potency is measured on the Scoville scale. A jalapeno, as used in Tabasco sauce, contains about 5000 Scoville heat units; a bird's eye chilli packs between 50,000 and 100,000.

The Trinidad Scorpion Butch T sample topped 1.46 million."