DON'T OVERDO IT.

Here's sufficient heat to last a long cold winter.

Those came off the plants in anticipation of a frost, a few weeks after the salsa was put up.

Both of those variants are relatively naturally occurring peppers, there's a propagated X-rated version going for event-horizon levels of hot.

Ed Currie, the South Carolina hot pepper expert who crossbred and grew the Carolina Reaper that’s hotter than most pepper sprays police use to subdue unruly criminals, has broken his own world record with a pepper that’s three times hotter.

Pepper X was publicly named the hottest pepper in the world on Oct. 9 by the Guinness Book of World Records, beating out the Reaper in Currie’s decadelong hunt to perfect a pepper that he says provides “immediate, brutal heat.”

“I was feeling the heat for three-and-a-half hours. Then the cramps came,” said Currie, one of only five people so far to eat a entire Pepper X. “Those cramps are horrible. I was laid out flat on a marble wall for approximately an hour in the rain, groaning in pain.”

I repeat, the hot peppers can be useful in treating constipation, but you don't want to overdose and you'd better have beer handy.

The burning sensation spurred in humans also releases endorphins and dopamine into the body. Currie, who went all in to growing peppers after kicking drug and alcohol addictions, considers that kick a natural high. He shares his peppers with medical researchers, hoping they can use them to cure disease and help people who suffer chronic pain or discomfort.

For Currie, having the hottest pepper in the world has been a two-decade obsession. It took 10 years to get Pepper X from the first crossbreed experiment to the record, including five years of testing to prove it was a different plant with a different fruit and documenting its average heat over different plants and generations.

“We covered the genetics, we covered the chemistry, we covered the botany,” he said.

And he cautions prudence.

Currie wants people to eat peppers and thinks they can benefit from the rush that comes after the burn. He calls most hot pepper challenges stupid and cautions pepper peekers against being overly ambitious and reaching too quickly for a Carolina Reaper or Pepper X.

“You build up a tolerance,” Currie said, later hinting that more pepper heat may be bubbling up from the fields, labs and chillers that he won’t let fans, reporters or even the bankers helping his business expand see.

“Is this the pinnacle?” Currie said of Pepper X, a mischievous smile warming his face. “No, it’s not the pinnacle.”

I'll stick with the naturally occuring varieties, thank you, and work on the railroad.