Orange juice also works to kill the burn. Water is never the answer!
I ever understood why folks want to burn that badly in the first place.
Back when I had my sports bar/restaurant in Largo FL, we were know for our killer wings, giants they were, a deal I struck with a local poultry processor to sell me monsters.
We had several sauces including one that was really hot.
Every Friday three construction workers would come in for a dozen hot wings and beer, their weekly ritual. And for the years I owned that place these three constantly complained about how our hot wings were too wimpy for their Manly Men testosterone infused palate.
My cook---I wouldn't call him a chef, but he had his fitful ego-driven moments---had enough of the perceived insults. He came to me on Friday afternoon for permission to make some volcanic hot wing sauce...and proceeded to show me a small bottle of tiny green peppers he had procured from, I dunno, a local military arms dealer or somebody who dealt in illegal chemical weapons.
I gave consent and asked to be notified when our taste-dead trio graced our establishment once again.
So, indeed, they arrived and took their culturally reserved Friday Night seat at the bar. Ordered a pitcher of Bud and wings, and like clockwork, excoriated the cook to give them something hot for a change, they weren't wimps.
Their request was honored. I never saw Chefy Baby (my pet name for him) so joyous to drop wings in the fryer, like how I envision Satan dropping a cage of the Damned into the eternal pit of molten lava. Minutes later, the crisp tan delights were dumped into a big bowl, Chefy Baby pouring the potion from hell on them, shaking and stirring them around to coated perfection. I half expected an explosion, like nitroglycerin on a runaway mine train from an old western.
Chefy Baby even, for the first time, artfully arranged the wings on an oval platter....no basket for this creation (besides, the baskets were flammable.) He even put a sprig of parsley on the platter...and the crowning touch, crucifixes made with carrots slivers.
I took a position behind the bar, on the pretense of slinging drinks, and the barmaids and waitresses and busboy all stayed close for the Big Moment.
And so it had arrived.
"These are hot, right?" with the typical pre-meal game face.
"Of course, they always are."
The trio dug in. A couple of bites. Then it began. A slowdown from feasting, some sideways glances between them, small beads of sweat forming on furrowed brow, crows feet migrating toward the back of their head ...and no one wanted to say a thing.
Almost like a Beelzebub possession, they each ate two. By now the pain was becoming more intense. Skin color changed, neck veins popping out like attacked by an invisible garrote...and the entire bar was quiet, looking at these guys eat their wings. Beer was guzzled between bites, which were becoming increasingly small.
The big one spoke first, hamfist pounding his upper chest to restart his heart: "Well goddamn. This s#!t is like boiling tar. WTF did you do?"
Chefy Baby, clearly reveling in victory, needed to spike the ball and go for a taunting Personal Foul flag: "Not hot enough for you guys? I have some more sauce if you need it hotter." A soup bowl with a hovering chemical cloud put in front of the mark. Chefy's sneer was pure Snidely Whiplash.
"F@<k no, I done had enough." Breaths were coming more quickly and eyeballs were dangling from their optic nerves. One has some spastic face twitches. I thought I smelled singed nasal hairs.
No one finished even two. It took maybe 10 minutes for these guys, tough-skinned Florida roofers, to form coherent words and quit fanning their tongues. I never knew a human could consume so much fluid without a coroner being involved.
I comped their wings and offered them around the bar...with no takers. You'd think I was offering freebee plutonium rod chips. Chefy Baby brought new baskets of "hot" wings and all was well.
Same time a week later, they returned. They ordered hot wings. But instead of cook insults, just wanted assurance that their wings weren't going to be "those hot ones." Never more was a spicy comment rendered...
I don't know much about peppers, but do know that some were never meant for human consumption, and are destined to power fusion reactors in the future. Or used as an industrial solvent.
