Bottled Death

A couple of weeks ago while my wife was out of town, my old boss and I met up with drax0r for some ice cold beer-a at the only bar in Anna, TX - Swagger.

After a couple of rounds, we ordered pub food from the menu and drax0r asked for the "Super Swagger Hot Buffalo Wings." Now I'm not a fan of Buffalo Wings, but what transpired will not soon be forgotten.

As soon as he placed the order the waitress attempted to dissuade him with warnings, but drax0r merely dismissed her with a wave of his hand announcing he'd had them here before. While that was true, what he didn't know was that they'd since changed the recipe.

The manager himself brought the wings to our table, and explained that they were now made with Dave's Insanity "Private Reserve" Hot Sauce, which came in an autographed, numbered bottle shipped in a tiny coffin - made from the Naga Jolokia "Ghost Pepper" which is currently the hottest pepper in the world at approximately One Million Scoville Units (for comparison a Habanero pepper is between 100,000-350,000). Furthermore, there was a contest of sorts that if any one person could clear a plate of ten in under five minutes (after signing a waiver), there would be a prize of a t-shirt, and a framed photograph of the "winner" on the wall.

He sat the dish down on the table and left. We all just stared at it.

Using only the pad at the end of our index fingers, drax0r and I each touched just the surface of a wing and popped it into our mouth. Several minutes later, when we were able to talk again, we attempted to articulate to our boss just how "hot" hot was. Apparently misunderstanding, she performed the same maneuver which caused her to begin beating us like a side of beef for misleading her. How she could've missed our reaction and words of caution were beyond us.

drax0r ordered a glass of milk and a slice of bread before proceeding - as water is a poor refreshment, usually just spreading around the pain. Milk binds to the capsicum, and the bread absorbs it. I called him a pussy and ate one.

HOLY SHIT!

In the midst of my bravado, he handed me a pepper which I resolutely popped into my mouth and chewed. Judging by his expression, it was something not only I shouldn't have done, but something he hadn't expected me to do. I found out later why - it was a raw Habanero. Now, I'm not going to say I'm tough, because that's not what happened. However, because the "Ghost Pepper" sauce was so freaking hot the Habanero had no effect whatsoever on me, and was in fact, rather refreshing comparatively.

His milk and bread arrived. He ate one, and we left a plate of eight.

Now drax0r and I enjoy hot & spicy food, but Dave's Special Reserve Insanity Hot Sauce is simply too hot to be used in foodstuffs. Of course as fate would have it, I rubbed my eye prior to washing my hands - and while that put a damper on things, certainly not as much as drax0r touching something else prior to washing his hands, which brought the evening to an abrupt halt.

I doubt I will try those again.