The pepper was bred in a greenhouse in Rock Hill, South Carolina, by Ed Currie, proprietor of the Puckerbutt Pepper Company in Fort Mill. It was certified as the world's hottest chili pepper by Guinness World Records on August 11, 2017, surpassing the previous record set by the Trinidad Scorpion "Butch T". The official Guinness World Record heat level was 1,641,183 SHU in 2017, according to tests conducted by Winthrop University in South Carolina. The figure is an average for the tested batch; the hottest individual pepper was measured at 2.2 million SHU.
