It's a little warm in here.

Then there's jalapenos, probably the most popular "hot" pepper. They usually have just enough bang to please most people who like a little heat in their meal. It's easily found at your local green grocer, and they can be pretty cheap too... at $.99 to 1.99 a pound you could eat them every night. And bar hounds like us who end up making a plate of nachos our dinner two nights a week, jalapenos provide us with the body's daily nutritional requirement of capsaicin (oh, and vitamin C).

But let's continue up the scale a bit to the peppers that we can actually feel in our mouths... I mean, jalapenos are nice in your eggs for breakfast but by lunchtime, your asshole is calling you a wimp. So you're ready to move onward and upward from the beginner's stuff.

Next in the scale, but a good deal warmer is the chipotle, a smoked, dried jalapeno which can get as hot as 10,000 Scovilles, and serrano peppers, a Mexican fireball that tickles your tongue at around 16,000 Scovilles. You've probably tried serranos in the bitchin' salsa verde that most Mexican restaurants serve up.

Cayenne peppers sit right around 35,000 Scovilles, just below the unique and tangy flavor of Tabasco® peppers which can reach an ass-tingling 50,000 Scovilles. Tabasco® peppers are grown in a small area in Louisiana and grown (and patented) by the McIlheny company... coincidently, this is also the company that produces Tabasco® sauce. God bless those guys... without them, I think a lot of restaurants wouldn't even keep hot sauce on the table. For a really great look at the history of this American wonder check out tabasco.com. To read a pretty favorable review of their 4-sauce gift pack (with links to purchase) check out Tabasco: All in the Family here in the Belly.