The absolute hottest hot sauces in the world

So you've got hot sauce in your bag, swag. You and many other households because the hot sauce market in 2018 accounted for about $700 million dollars in sales. The Wall Street Journal says the popularity of hot sauce is "fueled by growing immigrant populations, thrill-seeking food shows, pop culture references and diners' increasing familiarity with global cuisines." From Tobasco to sriracha, it seems everywhere you go you find hot sauce sitting cozily next to bottles of ketchup and mustard. But sriracha is for amateur hour. It may be delicious, but once a hot sauce starts showing up in Cheez-Its, ice cream sundaes, Big Macs, and on the cars we drive, it's so mainstream that dripping sriracha on your food is as common as slathering it with ketchup.

Some like it hot, as in really, really hot. As in risking their health to consume it hot. As in consuming some of these hot sauces could result in "a temporarily irregular heartbeat and breathing" hot. The following hot sauces are ranked using the Scoville scale, a system that let's you know exactly how hot a particular food is. The numbers of a Scoville rating correspond with how many equal parts of sugar water would need to mixed with the offending hot sauce or pepper before you can't taste the heat at all.

In case you're wondering, it's a lot, so consider yourself warned. You definitely want to consume these at your own risk.