A New Ghost Pepper Concoction - The Bloody Laowry

Post and photos by the Hawthorne Hawkman.

Contrary to whatever assumptions are made from the photos above, the idea for this drink didn't come while in an altered state.  Instead, I happened to be listening to a cooking show on National Public Radio, and a caller brought up infusing vodka with Thai chili peppers.  That's when I got the bright idea to try this at home, except with ghost peppers.  I did a little research, and here's the basic recipe I came up with:

• One liter of vodka of decent but not too high quality.  The top shelf stuff has its own flavor, and the point of infusing vodka is to make the flavor your own.
• Two ghost peppers, ribbed and seeded.  Dried peppers work better.
• Two to three inches of fresh ginger.
• Two limes, using only the rind of the lime.

I divided the vodka into four mason jars, cut each ghost pepper in half for each jar, and added a quarter of the limes and ginger to each part.  Then I sealed the contents and let them sit in a sunless area for a while.  Most internet sites tell you to wait anywhere from four days to 2-3 weeks.  After a day and a half of infusion, I decided to check up on my science project.  That's when I found that the ghost peppers had been hard at work, because...

The Ghost Pepper Infiltrates North Minneapolis

Post and photos by the Hawthorne Hawkman, second photo contributed.

Two years ago, I was the first (crazy) person in the area to blog about the bhut jolokia, the hottest pepper on the planet.  Since then, another pepper, the Trinidad Scorpion, has on occasion been measured as hotter than the more commonly known ghost pepper.  While I have yet to try the latter, the former has made its way into our daily lives.  Okay, not daily; the human digestive system is not made to handle regular ghost pepper consumption.  But more and more places are including the spice as an option in their meals.

The top two photos are from Papa's Pizza.  After Dan Hylton's CD release concert, I stopped by Papa's for a quick bite.  As the cook saw me pouring the red chili pepper flakes on my slider, he said, "If you like the hot stuff, I've got something REALLY hot for you.  That is, if you can handle it."

"You don't mean...the ghost pepper?"  I inquired.  Sure enough, he brought out a small container for me to add to my food.  when he saw me take down most of that container while only having a few sips of water, he gave me a bag of five or six peppers to take home.  In a nice community touch, these were grown at The Warren, which hosted Dan Hylton's concert that evening.

So I took home the peppers and made...

Boom Island Beer and an Accidental Ghost Pepper

Post and photos by the Hawthorne Hawkman.

Yesterday marked the premiere of Boom Island Brewing's new beer, Brimstone.  The new brew is on tap at Eli's Food and Cocktails.  Unbeknownst to me, Eli's now has two locations, the downtown spot and a new restaurant over in Northeast.  I went downtown, and missed out on the debut of Brimstone on tap.  That turned out to be a fortuitous mistake, because...

Girvan's Ghost Pepper is a Lesson in Humility

Post and photos by the Hawthorne Hawkman.

Eating ghost peppers can be a new and exciting experience, but it is not for everyone.  For example, it is not for sane people.  But up until Saturday night, I've never had a hot pepper I didn't like, or a hot pepper I couldn't eventually handle.  I've been the Will Rogers and Rocky Balboa of peppers and spices.  That is, until I tried the ghost pepper challenge at Girvan's Grille.  Here's how it works:  if you eat ten ghost pepper chicken wings in 15 minutes or less, without eating or drinking anything, or wiping your face or hands, you get a commemorative t-shirt and your name immortalized on their website.  The last time I ate ghost pepper wings (at a different place), I finished a dozen in eight minutes.  And the time before that, I actually sent them back to the kitchen because they weren't hot enough.  So this challenge should have been easy.  Boy, was I wrong.

First off, they do make you sign a waiver.  I've never had that happen before, and that should have been a warning.  But the other ghost pepper chicken wings I've eaten come with a buffalo-style glaze and little flecks of pepper on them.  Here, the wings are covered in a thick ghost pepper goo, with concentrated ghost pepper extract powder on top.  You almost can't tell there are chicken wings under the pile of insane spiciness.

My companions and I each had our own equally meaningless strategies for how we were going to approach this.  Mine was "slow and steady wins the race.  Don't eat the wings too quickly or the spice will build up too fast and overtake you."  Another strategy was to finish the wings as fast as possible before realizing how hot they truly were.  The third approach was, "I'm probably just going to wind up crying like a little girl."  It turns out that was the only plan that was remotely true to what followed.

The plates came out, the timer started, and a waitress agreed to film our exploits for posterity.  We each took our first bite, and...

Dragon's Breath Stir Fry - Another Ghost Pepper Recipe

Post and photos by the Hawthorne Hawkman.

I love Cub Foods on Broadway.  Admittedly, their selection of fresh fruits and peppers has diminished slightly this year (no starfuit, I haven't seen pomegranates in a while, and no lychees this year, not to mention a dearth of hot peppers).  But they have brought back the ghost pepper this fall.  A close comparison to what I cooked with last year shows some clear differences though.  Last year's peppers were advertised as "bhut jolokia," and the ghost peppers available this year are "naga jolokia."  The research I've done seems to indicate that these are essentially the same pepper.  The bhut pepper was grown in California while the naga is from Holland - both a far cry from the pepper's native area of India and Bangladesh.  If you have enough of a tolerance for hot peppers, both the bhut and naga jolokia have a smoky taste to them.  Remember - where there's smoke, there's fire.

Furthermore, I found that the Scoville scale, the most widely-accepted method to measure the spiciness of a pepper, is still somewhat disputed and there is no clear "hottest pepper in the world."  Several types, including the ghost pepper and the trinidad scorpion, lay claim to that title. And THEN my random neural firings led me to a non-sequitur...

Feats (and Feasts) of Strength with the Ghost Pepper

I have come to dub this the Demonwing.

Post and photos by the Hawthorne Hawkman, photos of Jeff Skrenes/Hawkman contributed.

We all have our little quirks.  For instance, Ed Kohler over at the Deets has his obsession with the presentation of hotel toilet paper at various locales.  In a way that's more connected than one might initially think, my fixation happens to be with the hottest pepper on the planet, the ghost pepper.  (Although I've heard that the Trinidad scorpion pepper is both hotter and has a more badass name, I've yet to encounter one available for consumption.)

In the top photo, fellow former NoMi resident, poet, and blogger Bryan Thao Worra and I shared several orders of ghost pepper wings at the Lowry Cafe as part of his going away party.  For the first time, I actually SENT THE WINGS BACK because even though they were spiced with these peppers, they simply weren't hot enough for a Laotian, a Latino dude, and a white boy with taste buds of steel.  That may not have been the wisest move, because later...

Lowry Cafe Has the Ghost Pepper!

Post and photos by the Hawthorne Hawkman, photos of Hawkman taken by Ann Loyd of Local D'Lish.

I've got to hand it to my NoMi neighbors.  In the midst of the tornado cleanup, NoMi Passenger had the roof torn off of her house.  Yet I still got a text from her telling me that the Lowry Cafe has ghost peppers they can put on chicken wings.  Here she is, no roof on her home, and she's looking out for my taste buds.

So after getting roped into a press conference at 26th and Broadway, I moseyed on over to Lowry Cafe.  This would also be the first time I tried the Rogue beer they have available.

The photo might not make this entirely clear, but they serve their beer in a chilled glass.  "Beer should always be served in a chilled glass or frosty mug" is one of my most deeply-held nonreligious, apolitical beliefs.  Well done, Lowry Cafe.  Well done.

Now let's get to those chicken wings...

Cooking With the Feared Ghost Pepper

Available at Cub Foods on Broadway

Yes, the ghost pepper is strong enough that you must wear gloves when preparing it.

Post and photos by the Hawthorne Hawkman, except where I am in pictures.  Above photo of me taken by the Irving Inquisition.  Below photo of me taken by my sister-in-law.

Earlier this year, I heard an NPR bit about the hottest pepper on the planet, the ghost pepper, or bhut jolokia.  This little baby is so strong that farmers in India and Bangladesh - where it is native - cut it open and rub it on fenceposts to SCARE OFF ELEPHANTS.  In fact, in India, the government is actually looking at weaponizing it as a tear gas/crowd deterrent.  Do you sometimes have trouble with a jalapeno?  Well, that clocks in at about 1,000 Scoville units.  The hottest habanero can get up to 577,000.  A ghost pepper hits as high as 1,050,000 - 1,300,000.  The Scoville scale is imprecise, as the same kind of pepper can vary in hotness depending on cultivation conditions.  At times the Trinidad Scorpion pepper has measured around 1,463,000 on the scale, and could now be considered the hottest pepper in the world. "Trinidad Scorpion," which would make an excellent name for either a death metal band or a WWE wrestler.

There are peppers that are simply hot.  Then there are those that make you respect the pepper.  Finally, you have spiciness that's the equivalent of a religious experience because it makes you realize there are forces in this universe that are far more powerful than you will ever be.  The ghost pepper is one such experience.  I've tried it once before, on chicken wings in a restaurant in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan of all places.  In terms of the religious aspect, it did not disappoint.

My pastor says I make the same face when I take Holy Communion.

I turned a healthy shade of purple, I was dripping sweat from just about everywhere, the entire lower half of my face was numb, and I needed two beers to chase down six ghost pepper wings.  It was glorious.  If there is a Heaven, it might be exactly like this.  If there is a Hell, then these meals don't come with beer.

Naturally, when I saw the ghost peppers for sale at Cub on Broadway, I absolutely had to try my hand cooking with them.  There was one little problem though...