Archive for April, 2013

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My Birthday was last Sunday, and I had an amazing weekend. I was kidnapped by a dozen crazed friends wearing silly outfits, stuffed into a balloon-filled party wagon, and taken on a an epic road trip that will go down in the annals of our collective friendship as one of the most awesome experiences we’ve shared.

The day after the road trip, on my actual birthday, I had cookout at my place. In the waning hours of the event, after some had gone home, those of us that remained thought that maybe we should kick it up a notch. And naturally, I figured what better way to cap off my birthday than by eating one of the hottest chilies in the world!

This being early spring, I had no fresh pods, but I did have a stash of dehydrated 7-pots that I harvested last fall. Game on.

For the uninitiated, the 7-pot is a relatively rare cultivar from Trinidad and is so-named, the story goes, because a single pod could easily heat seven pots of stew. They weigh in at around 1.2 million Scoville Heat Units. For comparison purposes, jalapenos are usually between 2,500 and 8,000 SHUs.

After reconstituting them with a little boiling water, I downed half of a formerly-more-than-golf-ball-sized pod. FYI, the pod was cut lengthwise.

Hilarity (?) ensued. Watch the video to see me feel the “vibrations!”

After my intense experience, the group pulled together a pile of filthy lucre to coax our friend who is known for generally preferring mild cuisine (We’ll call him “C-Money.”) into following suit.

So, I present these two impromptu pod tests for your edification and enjoyment. Unlike other reviewers, I encourage you to try this at home!

*For some reason the time and date got screwed up halfway through the second video. Since it takes many hours to render a video of this length and then upload it to YouTube, I’m just going to leave it like this. Apologies.

Bottom line: I’ve had fresh 7-pots before, and I can tell you that the flavor of these reconstituted ones is definitely not as good. The texture is horrible, as you might imagine: mushy, slightly chewy, and seedy. Dehydrated pods are best for making chili powders or for making hot sauces in the off-season when fresh pods aren’t available – or for doing funny chili challenges, of course. The heat of these dehydrated 7-pots is insane. Enjoy!

Prometheus Springs Lemon Ginger ratingPrometheus Springs - lemon ginger

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Ingredients: Filtered Water, Organic Evaporated Cane Juice, Organic Lemon Juice Concentrate, Natural Lemon Ginger Flavor, Sea Salt, Capsaicin Extract

I had high hopes for Prometheus Springs’ Lemon Ginger drink. I picked up a bottle from a local natural foods store one day, lured by the snazzy packaging and the promise of delicious, refreshing capsaicin-induced euphoria. Unfortunately, it didn’t really do it for me.

The smell is pretty simple: It smells like lemonade with ginger in it. No surprise there.

The texture is just like instant lemonade. There’s no pulp or anything. The drink would benefit greatly from some lemon and ginger pulp floating around to give it a little more body and a little more bite – and a little more flavor. It would really be nice if it had some chili pulp in it, but I’m sure that’s asking too much. Which brings me to my next point…

It tastes like sugar water with a little ginger in it. It doesn’t even taste very much like lemonade. A little bit, but not much. I mean, it doesn’t taste bad. There’s too much sugar in it for it to taste bad. It’s just unremarkable. And too sugary. I suppose I can at least be thankful that it didn’t have the metallic taste often associated with extract. That’s probably because there’s barely any in it. Which brings me to my next point…

The heat is negligible. If I didn’t know there was capsaicin extract in it, I would have assumed that the slight tickle in the back of my throat was from the ginger. Even after swishing it around in my mouth and drinking half the bottle, the burn never amounted to anything.

Finally, $3 per bottle is too expensive for what this is.

Bottom Line: While the packaging is nice and the label is chock-full of fun verbiage, the drink itself is lackluster. And the heat is negligible. It tastes like sugar water. I would only recommend this for a child. Actually, no I wouldn’t. There’s too much sugar. Don’t waste the calories.