HotPepperIndex
Capsicum chinense

Apollo Pepper

United States
Superhot
Also known asApollo chili pepper · Apollo superhot
Scoville
0SHU
Heat0%
2.50M–3.18M SHU · PepperScale reports 3,180,000 SHU; Chili Pepper Madness reports 2,500,000–3,000,000 SHU

The Apollo Pepper is a superhot hybrid chili pepper developed by Ed Currie of Puckerbutt Pepper Company by crossing the Carolina Reaper and Pepper X. It is reported to reach up to 3.18 million Scoville heat units, placing it among the hottest peppers known. Primarily featured in The Last Dab Apollo hot sauce, it offers intense heat with limited public details on its form.

The Apollo Pepper is a blisteringly hot superhot chili created by Smokin’ Ed Currie at Puckerbutt Pepper Company in South Carolina as a deliberate cross between the Carolina Reaper and Pepper X. Little detailed information has been released about the fresh pepper itself beyond its extreme heat and parentage, but it has gained notoriety through its starring role in The Last Dab: Apollo hot sauce by Heatonist. This sauce uses fresh, powdered, and distilled forms of the Apollo pepper with minimal vinegar to deliver concentrated, unadulterated heat measuring 2.5 million SHU—hotter than the upper range of a Carolina Reaper. Reports describe its flavor as sweet and earthy, blending the fruity notes typical of the Reaper with earthier tones from Pepper X. Appearance is expected to resemble its parents: pod-like pods around 2.5 to 3 inches long, wrinkled and gnarled, ripening to red. Seeds are not available to the public, so most enthusiasts encounter it only through the commercial hot sauce. The pepper’s heat is described as unfathomably intense, requiring extreme caution when handling.

Gallery

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Backstory

The Apollo Pepper was created by Smokin’ Ed Currie of Puckerbutt Pepper Company as a cross between the Carolina Reaper and Pepper X. It first gained widespread attention through its use in The Last Dab: Apollo hot sauce by Heatonist, which tests at 2.5 million SHU using multiple forms of the pepper.

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Flavor

A combination of sweet and earthy flavors with fruity undertones from its Carolina Reaper parentage and earthier notes from Pepper X.

fruityearthysweet

Culinary uses

hot saucesspicy challengesextreme heat applications

Q&A

Related variants

Appearance

Size
2.5 to 3 inches long
Notes
Similar in form to Carolina Reaper; limited official photos available
Shape
Pod-like, possibly with stinger tail
Colour
Red when ripe
Texture
Wrinkled and gnarled skin

Growing

Notes
Seeds not publicly available; developed and held by Ed Currie at Puckerbutt Pepper Company

Origin detail

Region
South Carolina
Country
United States
Breeder
Ed Currie of Puckerbutt Pepper Company

Tags

superhothybridcurrie creationextreme heathot sauce

Sources

Huge shout-out to the breeders, growers, researchers, and seed savers linked below — their independent work is what lets us fact-check our own. Go visit them.

These references are used to verify what we publish — not as the source of the content itself. Seed catalogs, breeder pages, research papers, and cultivar databases let us cross-check every fact before it lands here. Open any card to read the original or dig deeper.

2 sources · 5 searches · 4.7k reasoning tokens · Added May 14, 2026, 17:17 UTC
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