Spicy Meals So Hot You Had To Sign A Waiver To Eat Them

What makes a dish so spicy that it gets served with a liability waiver? It's not because it includes a few extra jalapeños, that's for sure. No, a dish that requires diners to sign their life away, acknowledging daunting warnings of burns to the mouth and the potential for "painful evacuation of bowels" typically contains copious amounts of some of the world's hottest peppers. And while you might consider yourself a total chilihead, your habit of shaking an entire bottle of Tabasco onto your eggs or piling your pizza slices high with red pepper flakes probably hasn't done much to prepare you for this kind of fire power.

These foods, drinks, and even dessert are chock full of so many Carolina Reapers, Trinidad scorpions, and ghost peppers, they'll give even the bravest heat-seeker a run for their money. And since you've already signed the waiver, you can't say they didn't warn you. Could you handle the heat of these ultra-spicy dishes?

Most of these are limited run items that may not be available at all times. So if you see a fiery dish you just have to try, call first (and maybe stop for a gallon of milk on the way).

We know that milk soothes the burn of hot peppers, so one could assume that eating ghost pepper ice cream would be much more pleasant than chomping down on a plain ol' pepper, right? Wrong. Let's not forget that ghost peppers come in at around 1 million Scoville heat units, and can be up to 417 times hotter than a jalapeño, so whether or not it's mingling with ice cream, it's going to pack a punch. 

In fact, the Ice Cream Store in Delaware won't even serve their super spicy treat — vanilla ice cream streaked with strawberry sauce and infused with ghost peppers — unless you're over 18, and have signed a waiver, which says, in part, "Anyone with heart ailments, vascular problems, respiratory problems, back problems, vision problems, high blood pressure, sinus conditions, digestive problems, circulation problems, immune problems, neurological or problems with authority should not taste this product!" 

One brave taste tester said, "First time I've ever sweated after eating ice cream." This might be a good time to point out that the waiver also comes with a word of caution: "It should be noted that what is painful going in may also be painful during exit!" 

If you're in the mood for some extra spicy Mexican food, you can try your hand at the Diablo Burrito challenge at Allan's Authentic Mexican Restaurant in Portland, Oregon. Since its inception in 2012, only two diners have succeeded in beating the Diablo, which contains steak, rice, beans, and "a deliciously devilish seasoned myriad of the hottest peppers commercially available on the planet." 

According to Allan's, before you attempt to eat "what most people call the spiciest burrito on the planet" you will need to sign a waiver and release, stating that the challenger "takes full responsibility of the burrito and the damage it may cause to themselves or others." A little disconcerting, no?  

Once you've agreed to those worrisome terms, you must commence your challenge by chomping into the serrano chili "devil horns" of the burrito, and clean your plate within 10 minutes. Oh, and you can only have water. No milk. No bread. Nothing. Somehow, shockingly, the record for finishing a Diablo stands at 3 minutes, 23.8 seconds (as of January 2019). The sheer size of the burrito alone has us speechless at that feat, let alone the spice level.

Flying Pie Pizzeria in Boise, Idaho celebrates habanero season every August with an exceedingly hot pizza. Of course, compared to Trinidad scorpions and Naga Vipers, regular ol' habanero peppers might not reign as one of hottest peppers in the world, but they still pack a fiery punch. 

According to Flying Pie, their peppers "are much hotter than the common habaneros available at the grocery store." They're not giving away any secrets, but grocery store habaneros definitely make you sweat, so these peppers must be hot, hot, hot. There's chicken and olives and cheese, too, to accompany this "just right" amount of heat, the pizzeria says. Add to that the fact that you can ratchet up the spice level of your 12-inch pizza by ordering a "quad" which comes with 24 habanero peppers (the heat equivalent to 20 pounds of jalapeños) and a drizzling of ghost pepper sauce.

While you're welcome to enjoy the spicy pie in the restaurant sans waiver, you must sign a release to take it out of the building, acknowledging "full responsibility for this pizza and what happens to it and for any ensuing havoc it may wreak." As a final more dire warning, you must also acknowledge that you were "encouraged to eat the pizza in the restaurant, where experienced hands prevail and they will not let me die." Okay, then.

Ordering a bloody mary "extra spicy" is more common than not — that boring canned tomato juice needs all the help it can get. But if you ordered a Wicksteed Scorcher "extra spicy," you'd probably just want to start digging your own grave. 

This hot chili cocktail was created by an events venue in Northamptonshire and is based on the classic bloody mary, but hotter. Way hotter. The drink consists of extract of Carolina Reaper, pepper vodka, lime, and tomato juice, and comes in at a whopping 1.5 million on the Scoville scale, prompting the bar staff to wear gloves and masks when preparing the cocktail. If all these precautions, along with the fact that you're required to sign a legal waiver to drink it weren't enough to clue you in that this concoction means business, then perhaps the accompanying free "antidote" cocktail full of yogurt and mango to help squelch the burn will. 

Australia's Burger Urge is taking safety precautions to the next level — not only do they require customers to sign a waiver to eat their Double Decker Death Wish burger, they also provide protective gear to wear while eating it. Gloves and goggles? Just how hot is this thing?

According to Travel + Leisure, the monstrous burger is made up of "habanero peppers, ghost chilis, and secret hot sauce, as well as two Angus beef patties, maple bacon, cheese, pickles, jalapeños, tomato, and lettuce."  Burger Urge's managing director Sean Carthew promised, "It's legitimately the hottest burger in Australia. Those ghost chilis are no joke." The burger, advertised by a creepy skull and cross-pepper Instagram video complete with harrowing screams, is apparently so spicy that goggles were even required for those cooking it. "We have to take special precautions when we prep it — that alone tells me someone's in for a treat," one manager said.

Can you order "hot" at your local curry house without blinking an eye? Don't get too cocky... that curry is going to taste like candy compared to the phaal at New York's Brick Lane Curry House. The restaurant's menu pulls no punches describing the heat level of dish, calling it "an excruciatingly hot curry, more pain and sweat than flavor. For our customers who do this on a dare, we require you to state a verbal disclaimer not holding us liable for any physical or emotional damage after eating the curry." 

The source of the pain is 10 to 12 ground chilis, including the Carolina Reaper, and Serious Eats writer Emily Koh called the dish "scorchingly hot — the kind of spiciness that seems deceivingly tolerable at first, only to build up to a raging furnace in your throat and in every crevice of your mouth." The good news? If you finish your plate you'll be rewarded with a bottle of beer — though you'd probably rather have a glass of milk.