Am I remembering correctly that there was one? A fella wrote in about a bet he refused during which he would drink a bottle of Tabasco, and Cecil wrote about the dire consequences that may have resulted? I’ve searched… I am I misapropriating it to Cecil?
You remember correctly. The column is in the first Straight Dope book.
Cecil’s reply started out, “I hope you like Gatorade and cough syrup, because that’s what you’re going to be living on for a week after you try this stupid stunt. The vegetable oils in Tabasco are fairly potent skin irritants…” The prediction was that “At best, your throat would hurt like hell for the rest of the evening; at worst, you could end up with a mild chemical-type burn down the length of your esophagus.”
What you may also remember is an episode of Late Night or The Late Show or whatever you’re supposed to call it, in which David Letterman chugged an entire bottle of what was purported to be Tabasco. He didn’t seem to suffer any ill effects, and finished out the episode like always.
Now, I still don’t know if that was for real. There are two possibilities here:
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Letterman didn’t really consume the Tabasco. Penn and Teller have been on his show numerous times; they could have told him how to line his mouth with plastic wrap or something. Or it might not have been Tabasco.
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Cecil somewhat exaggerated the “dire consequences” out of fear of a lawsuit. You’ll notice that he did mention a range of aftereffects; he didn’t definitively state that drinking a bottle of Tabasco leads directly to an ER visit. But for his own sake, and that of the Chicago Reader, he couldn’t risk saying “Go ahead and give it a shot” and then having the guy say, “I’m throwing up blood because The Straight Dope told me it was okay to drink Tabasco!”
So maybe “throat hurting like hell” is the usual fallout, with “mild chemical-type burn” being the long shot that Cecil couldn’t in good conscience set someone up for. And maybe Letterman has a high tolerance for pain and could handle having his throat hurt like hell. Maybe he learned a way to open his glottis so wide that the liquid went down real fast and barely grazed his esophagus. Penn and Teller could have advised him on that, too.
Anecdotal evidence, believe it or not!
I have never drank a bottle of tabasco but did have a significant amount poured into my mouth while asleep when I was at university (prank by supposed friends!). As I was lying on my side at the time some of the sauce ran out of my mouth and down my neck. It was strong enough to give me some fairly nasty mouth ulcers for the next few days and to give me physical burning on my neck.
I’d be very surprised if anyone could drink it without showing great discomfort as I was in agony (and I like HOT food!).
Years ago, at the diner in Brothers, OR, I watched as one of my travelling companions poured two bottles of tabasco on his fries and eat them. No ill effects. But he was Mexican-American and quite used to hot sauce.
This earlier thread discussed this quite extensively. The consensus was that Cecil probably exaggerated to some extent the actual physical damage that Tabasco might do.