That’s exactly where it fits in. I’m always a little wary of when people critique something being just a sauce to showcase your machismo, because everyone’s heat levels are different and I enjoy a lot of sauces others find inedible, but this is actually just fire and nothing else. The ingredients list shows as much.
You mentioned Takis upthread - those are roughly the highest heat of chips that I actually enjoy and will seek out, but which are still pretty hot. Sounds like all the other stuff being discussed in this thread is literally a magnitude (or a bit more) of Scovilles hotter than those.
Yeah, the Paqui Ghost pepper are, I’d guess, a magnitute of heat level higher than Takis. My daughters (8 and 6) can both handle Fuego Takis. (I can’t stand them as they are too sour for me. I like their cheese chips, but I can’t find them anywhere anymore.) I’m certain they’d be in pain with the Ghost Pepper Paquis. (But they are weird – they will not eat anything I make with even the littlest bit of heat to them, but when it comes to Taki chips, they gobble them up without a problem.) The Paqui One Chip Challenge chip I would say is at least two orders of magnitude spicier than the Paqui Ghost, and three more than the Takis Fuego.
Follow-up: today I tried actually eating a small piece of the chip. After a minute or so it went beyond any perception of “hot” and actively into pain, and I couldn’t stop drooling. I blended a cup of heavy whipping cream and some ice to make an impromptu milkshake to ease the worst of it. Oh, and after all that the chip itself tasted like shit. Totally pointless except as a fraternity hazing ritual.
I unexpectedly found a bag of the Haunted Ghost Pepper chips tonight at CVS (buying covid tests, sigh). I don’t disagree with you much on food stuff but I don’t think they taste good at all. The heat is great but I find the flavor is otherwise too mild and a bit fishy. The sodium isn’t too low (210 mg/1oz serving) but they still seem undersalted. Pity, I was looking forward to these chips.
Yeah, they’re not as aggressively seasoned as Takis or Doritos, but I enjoy them when I want something approaching actual heat in my chips. Try them with guac, too. They work well there, in my opinion.
That was also my experience with true “suicide wings” that I ordered once - the kind that the place used for their own version of the “hot sauce challenge”. All the sauce was was heat. It just wasn’t flavorful at all beyond that.
The best sauce I’ve had was at a local restaurant in Baltimore, where they had a Habanero sauce that I think started off pretty close to Frank’s, but then they added fresh chopped up habaneros. I could taste them in the sauce. It was pretty darn hot, although not the hottest I could tolerate, but above all, was very flavorful.
The hottest thing I’ve eaten is just a single raw habanero which can be a couple hundred thousand scoville. I was very unhappy for like 45 minutes afterward. I can’t image millions. I’d hope that your senses saturate after a certain level and it doesn’t get much worse otherwise that’s horrific.
Won’t be trying the One Chip Challenge but did try the Ghost Pepper version and found it was just very hot but otherwise tasteless.
The do have a Chile Limon one however that I thought had the right amount of heat with some really good flavor. I’ve bought a few bags of those