This last/current year was the first year I've grown peppers or, for that matter decided to start a garden at all, after being inspired by Neil's video reviews on YouTube. I've watched pretty much all of his Chilli Tests, and quite a few of the Chilli Sauce Tests. After trying a small piece of what I would later find out to be one of the world's hottest peppers--a habanero--I was hooked. Even with the major ass-kicking and intense pain that it provided (that was unlike anything I've ever felt before), and the fact that I needed something (milk) for the first time ever to extinguish the heat... which even milk barely was able to do.
Even though it was so intense I finally found that there was heat out there that I never experienced before, let alone could handle. It put Taco Bell's Hot and Fire sauce to shame (though admittedly I do like the taste of the sauce you can find in their restaurants... their crap sold in supermarkets sucks, though). After years of wishing for something hotter than the typical crap "sauces" (ie. flavored vinegar) that you find in US stores, I finally found what I've been looking for.
I grew a tabasco plant (around 200-250 peppers on a single plant, which also happened to be my largest plant--amazing!), a serrano plant which started out nice but unfortunately stopped being productive once all the other plants pretty much dwarfed it and stole its light, a jalapeño plant which I shouldn't have got (it must have been diseased, didn't produce crap except a few deformed fruits that struggled to ripen, and had dark spots on its leaves), an orange habanero plant which was easily my favorite and I'm trying to keep going for next year, and countless cayenne pepper plants (which were the ones to dwarf and take all the light from poor serrano).
Forgiving the Jalapeño plant, realizing that it was probably diseased--I would have to say that my least favorite was the Tabasco plant. In food, the heat of tabasco peppers doesn't seem to spread much, causing some parts to not be hot all and other parts overwhelmingly hot. They can sometimes be nice "snacks" to eat right off the plant for a quick burst of heat, but even then their flavor is not that great.
And to put things in perspective: Yes, these were plants that were raised by some huge company (Bonnie Plants) and sold to local stores (Lowe's and Wal-Mart). But unfortunately, around where I live, there's very little selection, and I was lucky to find a habanero plant (or *anything* hot) at all.
