# Habaneros vs. Scotch Bonnets - how much hotter? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [June 9, 2017, 6:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/habaneros-vs-scotch-bonnets-how-much-hotter/788488 "2017-06-09T06:20:06Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 2\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Shagnasty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2017, 11:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/habaneros-vs-scotch-bonnets-how-much-hotter/788488/21 "2017-06-09T23:03:20Z")
> [@anomalous1](#): > > I love spicy food and the heat of peppers, but isn’t it now just a pissing contest to make a hotter pepper? After a certain Scoville rating they all kind of range into “not hot enough” to “bad case of firehole”. I’ve eaten ghost peppers and the heat is similar to habanero’s, just last a few minutes longer. What is the ultimate point of creating a hotter pepper, honestly? There isn’t one. I say this as someone that always has bags of haberneros around and eats roughly 7 a day including the occasional raw one. They are definitely hot as hell but they also have good flavor. The stuff that I cook for myself is so hot that no one else that I know except for mother can eat it and I am from Louisiana. Occasionally, I will get a hotter than normal batch of haberneros or Scotch Bonnets and I can barely eat it myself. The cashiers at my large suburban supermarket tell me that I am one of the few people that ever buys them. Yes, they burn badly on the way out as well if you eat enough of them. That is how I taught myself a form of meditation “This too shall pass” to deal with pain. You just learn to ignore it after a while and focus on something else. I see no point in going higher than that. I have a bottle of Mad Dog Inferno (once one of the hottest hot sauces in the world) that has been around forever and can truly hurt someone. I remember the first time I tried and it wasn’t a fun hour. The only reason I have it is sometimes people come over and brag that they can eat any hot foods. I think, “Oh really, let me start you off with an appetizer then”. A few drops of Mad Dog Inferno and a cracker will dispel all but the most hard-core people of that notion extremely quickly. The stupid thing is that the hot sauce heat wars have heated up (no pun intended) a lot since even the insanely hot ones were invented. People are just trying to weaponize them now. There is no point to that from a culinary standpoint. It is just pain with little flavor and no purpose. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2017, 2:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/habaneros-vs-scotch-bonnets-how-much-hotter/788488/22 "2017-06-10T14:55:58Z")
> [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](#): > > Speaking of which, having now had my first experiment interchanging habaneros with scotch bonnets: _ow ow ow ow ow_. They are _not_ the same, the habaneros I got are _waaaay_ hotter than the bonnets. Ow ow ow ow ow. 😃 LIke I said above, there’s a lot of variability in heat level from batch to batch. Sometimes I get a jalapeno that is only a notch or two higher than a sweet pepper. Other times, I get one that I would call legitimately hot. I find Scotch Bonnets, overall, to be exactly in the same league as habaneros. If you can handle a Scotch Bonnet, you can handle a habanero fine. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/habaneros-vs-scotch-bonnets-how-much-hotter/788488.md?page=1)