"We live in an extreme world," describes Blair Lazar, a hot sauce inventor. "And I make extreme foods. ' In his palm of his hand is the most blistering pepper extract in the world, an over-the-top version of pepper concentrate so blistering that customers must sign a waiver clearing him of any liability if they are crazy enough to try it.

Locked in a crystal bottle sealed with wax and a tiny skull, Mr Lazar's lip-scorching concoction is pure capsaicin - the chemical that gives habanero and jalapeno peppers their atomic heat. Blair Lazar claims to try his sauce is to encounter 'pure heat' His "16 Million Reserve", which is released to the public in 2006, is the brass ring of hot sauces, the most blistering pepper extract that chemistry can create. It is 30 times hotter than the hottest pepper, the Red Savina from Mexico, and 8,000 times more powerful than Tabasco sauce.

To put the smallest dot on the tip of your tongue is to encounter "pure heat", Mr Lazar says. Although capsaicin does not actually burn - it tricks your brain into thinking that you are in pain by exciting nerve endings in your mouth - some health specialists think that it might kill an asthmatic or hospitalize a user who touched his eyes or different susceptible parts of the anatomy. Mr Lazar has trained his taste buds to endure the feeling, but he remembers the instant he decided to try his "16 Million Reserve" himself. "The pain was exquisite," he said. "It was like having your tongue hit with a hammer. Man, it hurt. My tongue swelled up and it hurt like hell for days. " The Scoville Scale measures the heat of peppers. The eye-watering merits of peppers are measured in globally Scoville units, established by Wilbur Scoville, an American chemist who, in 1912, asked panelists to evaluate how many parts of sugar water it took to remove the heat.

Today, capsaicin content is measured in parts per million, using a procedure recognized as high-performance liquid chromatography; one part being equivalent to 15 Scoville units. Benign bell peppers rate zero Scoville units and the Red Savina joined Guinness World Records at 570,000 units. Pure capsaicin, meanwhile, has a heat score of 16 million units - moving the name for Mr Lazar's latest innovation. Each of the 999 limited-issue bottles, priced at $289, comprises of just a few crystals. The concentrate is so strong, though, that Mr Lazar approximates that it would have to be dissipated in 250,000 gallons of water before it might no longer be tasted.

His calling as a hot sauce inventor began when he established that the best way to remove people under the influence out of his seaside bar was to give them free chicken wings immersed in an eye-watering home-made hot sauce. Now he owns and manages Extreme Foods in New Jersey, marketing his existing assortment of sauces, including "Mega Death" and "Jersey Death", the second, according to Mr Lazar, being the world's most blistering usable hot sauce. He maintains a refrigerator full of purified water in his headquarters for those courageous enough to try some of the sauces. Most testers sweat severely and are powerless to see through their tears for up to half an hour. It takes many tons of crisp peppers to produce 1lb of capsaicin for the 16 Million Reserve, and the work takes months. First, wetness is separated from the crisp peppers until a thick tar-like substance is left. The process by which all additional impurities are removed, leaving pure capsaicin concentrate, is classified, but the work takes place in a research laboratory where Mr Lazar and his team wear sealed outfits with masks to steer clear of inhaling the dust. Several years ago Mr Lazar developed "2am Reserve" in of the hour at which he once closed his bar. It was hotter than any other hot sauce creation on the market, measuring up to 900,000 Scoville units. He then distilled even more powerful extracts, including the scorching "6am Reserve" at 10 million units. Most of the signed and numbered bottles of "16 Million Reserve" will be purchased by hot sauce addicts recognized as chile heads.

Buyers have to agree to a rider cautioning that any handling "must be under a controlled environment using protective and protective eye wear". "It can't be used for flavor," says Mr Lazar. "The only purpose is its heat value." He prefers not to guess on what might happen should anyone be crazy enough to down a whole flask. Rinsing the mouth with milk is among the best cures as it binds to fat molecules; it will also dissipate in alcohol.