Ghost Pepper Ice Cream: Waiver required
REHOBOTH BEACH – Tasting Ghost Pepper Ice Cream, an extreme flavor so scary hot customers need to sign a waiver before eating it, seldom has a happy ending.
At The Ice Cream Store near the boardwalk, Troy Salvatore rests on bench rubbing his mouth 10 minutes after tasting the frozen treat spiked with some of the world's hottest chilies along with fiery capsicum extracts and sauces.
Hurts so good? Well, not really.
"It's really hot. The first one wasn't so bad. But the second bite? It got me in my lips," Salvatore says wincing in pain. "It went right to my chapped lips."
His uncle, Jeff Hobbs, chuckles at his ice cream eating companion still haunted by The Ghost. One blazing bite was enough for Hobbs, and past experience with the sock-it-to-me, lingering burn has taught the older man to know when to say when.
"It's good – until you get to a certain point. If I ate a whole cone, I would need a waiver and an obituary," the Pittsburgh tourist says. "It would read 'Jeff Hobbs – dead.'"
As seagulls swoop about and cackle at what seems like stupid human tricks, Chip Hearn, Delaware's P.T. Barnum of ice cream, stands on the sidewalk outside of his resort area shop and giggles gleefully at the reactions of his customers.
Hearn makes no bones about the shameless salesmanship of the off-the-wall ice cream flavors - Zombie? Cereal Killer? Pop Rocks? - offered at his 45-year-old 6 Rehoboth Ave. business that's steps away from the ocean. He also caters to chiliheads at his Peppers hot sauce store on Del. 1 in Lewes, and Peppers mail-order business, peppers.com.
Ghost Pepper Ice Cream, a vanilla ice cream ribboned with strawberry sauce and infused with chili peppers that villagers in India smear on fence posts to repel elephants, seems like a perfect marriage to him.
Tender tongues, stay away. Chili lovers, get ready to be blown away. The first taste is a deep, rich creamy vanilla with a hint of sweetness quickly followed by a Mike Tyson worthy wallop of mouth-searing heat. Be prepared for a loitering burn that outstays its welcome.
While the average American consumes almost 22 pounds of ice cream per year, Hearn certainly doesn't expect anyone to order a Ghost Pepper Ice Cream cone or milkshake. But he knows the challenge of just tasting the blistering ice cream will bring out the curious. And they'll usually return – with friends.
During the summer, Hearn's employees hand out at least 200 free tastes of Ghost Pepper Ice Cream each week.
"They're tasting it and they're talking about it. That's the game," Hearn says
Still, it's not just a sideshow novelty. Heat paired with sweet is a flavor trend showing up in ice cream freezers and going mainstream, according to Dairy Foods magazine. Spiced Pecan Turtle is a new Häagen-Dazs product infused with cinnamon and chilies.
Fire-and-ice pairings are hardly unusual. Chocolate makers such as Chicago-based Vosges Haut-Chocolat have long produced sweets infused with exotic spices and chilies. The heat of chilies tend to tease the taste buds with a warm slow heat while delivering capsaicinoids, which are known for their anti-inflammatory, analgesic and heart-healthy effects. Ice cream's sweetness, from sugar and milk, tamps down the heat.
Spicy ice creams have been gaining in popularity at The Ice Cream Store for the last few years, says Hearn, who has been operating the stand since 1970. He offers close to 100 different flavors at any given time.
One popular flavor this summer is Aztec chocolate, a vanilla ice cream flavored with Hershey's chocolate syrup, cinnamon, paprika and dark chocolate flakes and bacon bits marinated in a ghost pepper hot sauce known as Ghost of Christmas Past.
Another ice cream packing heat is "Stifler's Mom," a flavor named for a character from the 2001 movie "American Pie." The brown "shugah" vanilla ice cream has cayenne pepper, candied pecans and ribbons of caramel.
The continuing allure of the mind-boggling hot Ghost Pepper Ice Cream, first introduced in 2012, just might be this gimmick: You must sign a waiver to even try the icy fireball that's made with "dangerously hot" chili peppers.
Hearn says the waiver is "legal, but it's done in a smart ass way."
Everyone has to sign the waiver, and no one younger than 18, or over the age of 65, can taste the ice cream without first providing written consent, or consent from a parent or legal guardian. Tastes will not be given to anyone intoxicated or impaired. No one with existing health problems, pregnant women or those trying to get pregnant, lactating mothers, and "men with erectile dysfunction" should attempt to eat the ice cream.
And then there this is not-so-gentle reminder on the waiver: "It should be noted that what is painful going in may also be painful during exit!"
It's not a joke and caution should be heeded. Tabasco sauce, which ranges from 2,500 to 5,000 Scoville heat units, is nothing compared to the Ghost Pepper that's so searingly hot it's spooky. The chili, also known Bhut Jolokia or Naga Jolokia, is rated at more than 1 million Scoville heat units.
The Ghost was once the world's hottest pepper, but, in recent years, it has been muscled aside by other chilies like the Dorset Naga, an incendiary bomb of nearly 1.6 million Scoville heat units.
Still, the name is catchy. Ghost Pepper Ice Cream, like many of the flavors at The Ice Cream Store, is made by Woodside Farm Creamery in Hockessin. Hearn orders 10 gallon batches from owner/ice cream maker Jim Mitchell.
"Jim hates to make it," Hearn says of the spicy ice cream. "He has to clean the [ice cream] machine three times after making it."
Tom Craft, an owner of Two Fat Guys restaurants in Hockessin, Greenville and north Wilmington, gets the chilies and makes the ghost pepper/habanero mash that Hearn uses in the ice cream. The mash also is mixed with hot sauces like Mad Dog 357 Heartbreaking Dawns 1841 and Da' Bomb Ghost Pepper Hot sauce.
Craft says he receives a quart of the Ghost Pepper Ice Cream from every batch.
"It's pretty hot stuff, but I like it," he says. "It's got a kick to it. It's sweet and creamy, but then it creeps up on you. It's the second bite that gets you."
Sampling the Ghost can be scary, and Ice Cream Store employees willingly share horror stories. They talk about the poor fellow who vomited on the spot after swallowing a spoonful. And then there was the guy who, after a few licks, couldn't stop coughing for a good 10 minutes.
Their favorite visitors tend to be the macho men who will boast to anyone within hearing distance that they can handle any level of heat when it comes to chilies. (And, yes, most Ghost Pepper Ice Cream samplers tend to be men.)
Inevitably, the boasters get humbled by the heat and regrets come fast and furious. With sweat on their brows and tears in their eyes, they'll ask for something, anything, to put out the fire. Employees are ready with big spoonfuls of vanilla ice cream, along with giant squirts of whipped cream. Dairy usually does the trick, though the cooling effect takes time.
On Monday afternoon, Billy Parker of Winchester, Va., was a willing Ghost Pepper Ice Cream braveheart.
"It has a lot of good flavor. It's not just hot to be hot," he says after signing a waiver and taking a bite. But as the heat becomes more intense, Parker adds "it's very hot."
Parker abandons The Ghost and turns his attention back to a cup of coconut ice cream.
Russ Goffred also shows no fear when it comes to being a Ghostbuster. "It's not that bad. I was expecting worse," says the New York tourist after tasting the ice cream.
Goffred, who appeared to be suffering no persisting burning, shrugs his shoulders about the challenge. "I like the hot stuff and I like ice cream, so it was a good mix," he says.
Hobbs and Salvatore, however, are done dancing with the devil, and they have gladly given up The Ghost.
"I'm going to get some banana [ice cream]," Hobbs tells his red-faced nephew, who is still in recovery mode.
Contact Patricia Talorico at (302) 324-2861 or ptalorico@delawareonline.com and on Twitter @pattytalorico Read her blog at www.delawareonline.com/blog/secondhelpings