The English, in my experience, actually have a pretty decent spice tolerance. It varies wildly (just like it does in the US), but remember this is the land of phalls and tindaloos, for those folks for whom vindaloo isn’t spicy enough. I don’t think the spice level tolerances are really much different between the UK and the US. In fact, the spiciest Indian/Pakistani food I’ve ever had was in Wolverhampton, England.
It took about a quadruple-take for me to realize the thread title isn’t referring to the name of a dish.
Too bad, I’d love some of the spicy booby trap.
(Let 'em eat “STFU”, says I.)
I have a very low tolerance for capsaicin; Somedays I can’t stand anything hotter than a bell pepper. I know several people who snack on jalapenos and other spicy peppers. Quite a few of these people think my homemade cocktail sauce is too hot. There’s no accounting for taste.
Which makes me think you should add a dab of horseradish to your hot sauce. That might be the kick in the pants these not-hot-enough people need.
Put a picture of a flaming sphincter on it.
I have had the same reaction from chiliheads with my salsa. So I got some dried bhut joloki peppers and added them to the mix.
They don’t say much anymore. Well, maybe they curse my name as the jupiter-sized ball of flame comes shooting out their arses a few hours later…muahahahahahaha
That was a bit of a poke - I could have said “are you from Minnesota” or whatever but England sounded pithy in the moment. I mean, anyone thinking that 2 TBSP of crushed red pepper flakes in a gallon of sauce gives “kick” is used to some seriously bland food.
I just think it’s funny the OP thinks he’s going to slay the spicy-likers with chipotle pepper, considered by most spicy-likers to be, essentially, only slightly spicier than a bell pepper. He’s like, in the wrong order of magnitude entirely. They say it isn’t spicy! I’ll show them! I’ll put in diabolical music a dash of Tabasco sauce!!!.
Chief Wiggum: Afternoon, Homer. Care for some chili? I’ve added an extra ingredient just for you. The merciless peppers of Quetzlzacatenango! Grown deep in the jungle primeval by the inmates of a Guatemalan insane asylum.
Ah, sorry, missed the joke. I think I would have gotten it with the Minnesota substitution. 
But, yeah, I totally understand the Tabasco comment. It’s pretty much just flavored vinegar to me–only a vague sensation of heat in it. And it’s not a matter of machismo or anything. It’s just that once you get into spicy foods, you develop a tolerance and you stop tasting the heat unless you get a higher and higher dose. For me, spicy is eating a whole habanero or two. But I do remember the days when a single whole jalapeno would cause me unbearable pain for about ten minutes, and I had to keep ice cubes in my mouth to numb the sensation.
I agree with this. Many folks I know who slather habanero sauce on food really have issues with horseradish. It’s a completely different heat and spice flavor. Although, it will alter the flavor, not just add heat.
I love spicy stuff.
I hate horseradish. Not because it’s too spicy, but because it tastes bad.
Horseradish is yummy! I love the stuff. My “Devil’s Own Deviled Eggs” are stuffed with baby shrimp mixed with grated horseradish. Now those will clear your sinuses!
True, but if they’re adding a sauce to the dish after serving, I don’t think they’re so concerned about preserving the flavor that a little horseradish will bother them. Unless they’re like Kyla. It’s not something to slather about all willy-nilly, however.
Silenus, I’m not a fan of shrimp, but I’d like your recipe. Those sound interesting.
Yeah, horseradish/mustard/wasabi spice are completely different from capsaicin spice. It’s not a “burning the tongue” spice, but rather an “irritating the nose/lungs” spice. I wish there was a different name for these two different types of “heat,” because I don’t find them comparable at all. I can literally eat an entire jar of horseradish (not sauce, but pure grated horseradish) without any problem. It’s a very temporary irritation and dissipates very quickly. Like within seconds. And if you don’t breathe incorrectly when eating it, you miss much of the punch, anyway. I could not say the same thing for a jar of habanero peppers. The heat from a single habanero will linger for ten minutes or so.
I’m pretty sure I know just the canned peppers in adobe you mean, and it’ll be hot enough, with a good flavor. I take a can of that, blend it to a paste, and coat pork with it overnight. Makes a very yummy spiced pork.
And I agree that habeneros typically taste better, to me, than jalepenos. Just a lot more TO them, somehow. More flavor. And, to me, not necessarily any hotter. But I prefer smokey heat to vinegary heat anyday. I actually don’t really like vinegary sauces. I want flavor, not taste-bud-stabbing.
Label it
Slather
This
For
Ultra-Heat!
FTW!
Habaneros are–ounce for ounce–a shitload hotter than jalapenos. There’s no comparison. But, as you note, they have a very different flavor from jalapenos or serranos or any of those types of peppers.
About a hundred times hotter, more specifically.
So far as I know, there are at least four completely different kinds of “spicy heat”: Capsaicin (found in fruit-peppers), mustard oil (found in mustard, horseradish, wasabi, etc.), piperine (found in black pepper), and cinnamaldehyde (in cinnamon oil). I’ve often wondered about the possibility of a hot sauce containing equal parts (by Scoville rating) of all four (and yes, I know that the Scoville scale traditionally applies only to capsaicin, but it’s easy enough to generalize). It seems to me that a combination of different kinds of spicy-heat might produce a synergistic whole that’s greater than the sum of its parts.
Habenero sauces may be hotter than jalepeno ones, but the ones I’ve experienced so far are more complex, and so, to me, seem not as ‘hot’ as they probably are. I’m sure it varies according to sauce, as well. I no longer care for Tabasco sauce; it just tastes too vinegary and pointy. This neon-green habenero sauce I get is nice and round and yum.
Edit: I picked up a little bag of about 3 dozen fresh small, green serranos today. Any suggestions on what to do with them? They smell good, and I got them just for that. I have a whole weekend to play with them 