© 2024 South Carolina Public Radio
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

World's Hottest Pepper Grows in Rock Hill, SC

Measuring over 1.5 million on the Scoville Heat Unit Scale, our next guest's creation, known as the Carolina Reaper, was awarded the Guinness World Record in November of 2013 as the hottest pepper in the world.

Mike Switzer interviews Ed Currie, founder, president, and mad-scientist AKA Smokin' Ed of the Puckerbutt Pepper Company (the name of the company will not be mentioned over the air), who grows these peppers and more in his Rock Hill, South Carolina greenhouse.

Stay Connected
After almost 20 years, Mike Switzer retired from Wells Fargo Securities in 2001 as Senior Vice President/Investment Officer and Certified Portfolio Manager. In 1999, he and his wife, Maggie, purchased and operated for eight years the Baskin Robbins ice cream store on Forest Drive in Columbia. They grew the store from a bottom-tier operation in the Baskin Robbins franchise system to one in the top 5% nationwide within three years, tripling sales along the way. While operating the ice cream store, Mike and Maggie received patents for a portable ice cream sink and fold-down sneezeguard they invented and in 2002 started Magnolia Carts, an ice cream cart manufacturing company, which they sold in 2013.