Dear Chili Pal, Well the time has come for me to let you know the amazing project I have had the privileged to work on for the last few of years…..Blair Lab……So what is it……I will try to keep it simple—–About three years ago while making a batch of my reserves, I had an accident.(not the first time)..I was splashed in the face with 3 Million scoville units of hell…..My eyes had been sprayed as well as my face…..(NOT FUN TO SAY THE LEAST) My eyes and face were swollen for days….but something amazing happened after the pain went away days later….I noticed the skin around my eyes and face became firm (Of Course firm skin is by means worth that torture) In any event….I had this thought that the main ingredient-Capsaicin– I have been working with since 1989 could have a very different use…….I was very correct

I began my research….I had no knowledge of any skin care products aside what I saw in my wife’s medicine cabinet. Where to Start– I sought out and met with some of the greatest Research Scientists this country has to offer, many said I was crazy—I heard that when I started Death Sauce— but others saw my vision and over the last two years we have conducted test after test and trial after trial building this amazing formula …The Result has been nothing short of a miracle ….I am ever so proud to announce that I have created A product to treat Wrinkles and improve Skin Tone better than anything that has been produced before. (And yes WITHOUT the burn)

BIO-CAP, It is an anti-aging product of epic proportion. This was not as simple as adding some extract to skin cream….Not even close….I have been working in the most state of the art Research and development lab in this Country. Bio-Cap has Three patents to deliver the active compounds deep into the wrinkle and contains the most advanced technology available today. I have not released this information to anyone except on a very strict need to know basis only.(That was tough for me.. 3 yrs!!! ) I felt it appropriate to share it with you first. It is hard to sum of the magnitude of this product in a simple Email. I can tell you that in the coming weeks, Our web site www.blairlab.com will open and a new 20 page brochure will be released……. I know this could be considered an odd extension of what I do…..After all I am simply a guy that has been making the Worlds Hottest Sauces and Snacks for a long time.

But when a discovery like this comes along by accident, I felt I had no other choice but to find out everything I could and see if I could make this happen . If your next question is what does this mean for Blair Running his hot Sauce Company? The answer is simple—-Only better!!!!….I will continue to operate the day to day life of Death Sauce..In addition all marketing for Bio-Cap will be based on the real life story of how it happened, so Death Sauce will only have a much larger audience….We are in the process of putting together a Top Notch Staff to run Blair Lab. My Passion is and will remain HOT SAUCE……But if I can treat your wrinkles and make you look and feel better in the process…Than I am all for it……Like I said I wanted to keep this simple (Not Sure if I did or not) I could write pages and pages about this……But for now, there you have it…….Much more to come in the near future but you are the first to know……Wishing you All my best ……Look and Feel Alive……..

Your Chili Pal, Blair

PS I will have a very small supply of Bio-Cap and Bio-Cap XS at the Fiery Food Show in the coming Days. It will be available to the mass Market on April 2nd 2007

LONDON - Tarantulas and chili peppers may not appear to have anything in common, but an encounter with either the spider or the plant can be a painful experience.

Scientists at the University of California at San Francisco have discovered that they use similar tactics to frighten off predators by causing pain.

The venom of tarantula Psalmopoeus cambridgei, which is a native species in Trinidad and Tobago, contains toxins that trigger the same pain receptor on nerve cells throughout the body as hot chili peppers.

Capsaicin, the main pungent ingredient in hot chili peppers, sets it off.

“We have identified a new mechanism whereby venoms produce pain, and we have shown it is similar to one used by pepper plants to generate a similar sensation,” said David Julius, a molecular biologist at the university.

Both the spider and the plant have evolved a common mechanism to deter predators, he added.

When Julius and his colleagues, who reported their findings this week in the journal Nature, tested the venom of the spider in the laboratory on cells that contained the receptor it sparked a response, but not in the cells without the receptor.

The researchers also isolated three compounds from the spider venom. Mice with the receptor showed signs of pain and inflammation when the compounds were applied to their paw.

But there was no response in transgenic mice without the receptor.

The researchers whose work is focused on understanding the molecular basis of pain sensation believe other spiders may also use a similar defense mechanism.

Source: Reuters
WASHINGTON, March 15 (Reuters) - 16 Mar 2006 00:33:22 GMT - Capsaicin, which makes peppers hot, can cause prostate cancer cells to kill themselves, U.S. and Japanese researchers said on Wednesday. Capsaicin led 80 percent of human prostate cancer cells growing in mice to commit suicide in a process known as apoptosis, the researchers said. Prostate cancer tumors in mice fed capsaicin were about one-fifth the size of tumors in untreated mice, they reported in the journal Cancer Research.

“Capsaicin had a profound anti-proliferative effect on human prostate cancer cells in culture,” said Dr. Soren Lehmann of the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center and the University of California Los Angeles School of Medicine. “It also dramatically slowed the development of prostate tumors formed by those human cell lines grown in mouse models.”

While it is far easier to cure cancer in mice infected with human tumors than it is in human beings, the findings suggest a possible future treatment. They also may offer a good excuse for men who like spicy food to eat more of it. Lehmann estimated that the mice ate the human equivalent of 400 milligrams of capsaicin three times a week. That is about the amount found in three to eight fresh habanero peppers, depending on how hot the peppers are.

The capsaicin inhibited the activity of NF-kappa beta, a molecular mechanism that helps lead to apoptosis in many cell types. Prostate cancer is the most common malignant cancer in U.S. men. It is diagnosed in 232,000 men every year and kills up to 30,000 of them. Worldwide, 221,000 men die every year from prostate cancer.

I’ve found that the colder the hot sauce is the hotter it is.

I bought a bottle of Dave’s from the store and poured it over my food. It made me sweat but my tongue felt NOTHING. Repeat a day later except that I had the chance to chill it over night. That led to a big burn.

Aside from the ingredients, maybe that’s why every bottle is labeled KEEP REFRIGERATED

�Pepper aficionados know that if one can withstand the initial sense that the mouth is on fire, desensitization follows. That is, the more you eat, the more you can tolerate. There is a physical basis for this phenomenon. In cells growing in culture and in laboratory animals, several hours of exposure to pure capsaicin leads to degeneration and death of the exposed tissues.
Researchers hypothesize that prolonged but not dangerous exposure to capsaicin by hot-food lovers may actually kill pain fibers, and this is why they can tolerate the spicy food. This effect has led to uses of capsaicin in topical treatments for arthritis and herpes outbreaks. The scientists’ elucidation of precisely how capsaicin sets the human mouth afire may lead to development of new types of drugs to treat chronic pain.�

Source: Google Answers

From Cleveland.com

Wednesday, June 29, 2005
It burns! It burns! Why?

Capsaicinoids are the chemicals that give peppers their heat. They are present in almost every pepper, and their most common form is capsaicin.

The capsaicinoids in chile hot sauces bond to receptors in the lining of the mouth, the same receptors that register pain from heat, thus producing a burning feeling. In peppers, the highest concentration is found not in the seeds but in the inner lining.

In high concentrations, capsaicin can be toxic and so painful as to be incapacitating. That’s why a concentrated form is used in pepper sprays.

It burns, but I feel pretty good. Why?

When the body feels pain, it releases neurotransmitters called endorphins. These are natural painkillers and can produce an overall sense of well-being. It’s what produces a “runner’s high” and a “hot sauce high.”

Too hot! What can I do?

Don’t drink beer or water. That only will spread the burn around your mouth. Dairy products such as milk, yogurt, sour cream and cottage cheese do the best job of breaking the chemical bond between the capsaicin and your mouth lining. Bread also can help soak up the pain.

- Jim Sweeney Source: Royal Society of Chemistry

This is an old article from 2000 that I happened upon while searching the term “Sultan of Sauce”

Tim Seaver, the owner of Tios Mexican Cafe, calls him the “Iron-Throat Guy,” and speaks of him with authoritative awe. But Tom Starks doesn’t seem impressed with his feat. Tasting 1,000 different hot sauces over four years represents a natural progression for someone who began enjoying spicy food as a child. Read More…

Wonder how many he has tasted by now? After 15 years of hot sauce loving, I’m sure I’ve tasted over 1,000 hot sauces, wish I’d kept track.

How many have you tasted?

“We live in an extreme world,” explains Blair Lazar, a hot sauce creator. “And I make extreme foods.’ In his hands is the hottest spice in the world, an ultra-refined version of chilli powder so fiery that customers must sign a waiver absolving him of any liability if they are foolish enough to try it. Read More…

This time it’s international news from the UK.

The powder is so strong, however, that Mr Lazar estimates that it would have to be dissolved in 250,000 gallons of water before it could no longer be tasted.

See, I told you it hot. And one more quote just to be safe:

Internet sites such as the hot sauce weblog and sweatnspice.com have been abuzz with talk about this week’s release, with many collectors planning to buy at least two bottles - one to display and the other to try.

But one chilli head who obtained an early sample dropped a single grain into a pan of tomato soup. After persuading his wife to try a spoonful, he reported that: “She threatened divorce once she could speak again.”

Gotta love that quote, even the wife laughed (yes, she’s still putting up with me). Check the article out, it’s full of interesting heat scale information and it’s a free read for now.
Article Link:
This chilli is so hot, you’d have to drink 250,000 gallons of water just to put out the fire

Blair’s 16 Million compares to tabasco the way a bottle rocket compares to Nagasaki - NY Post May 4th, 2005

Blair’s Death Sauces have always been the hottest sauces on the market and the extract line of sauces have become high dollar collector’s items. Blair’s newest reserve is called Blair’s 16 Million Reserve and it’s not really an extract. It’s pure cap, in its powdered form. This hot concoction comes in the traditional Blair’s Reserve bottle, but it is actually a small vial, almost like a salt shaker, that is stuffed inside the bottle and then sealed with white and gold wax.

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Blair warned me of the heat level of this item many times. He talked about having put a small speck, a piece about the size of a salt crystal, on his tongue and apparently his tongue was wounded for a few days afterward. So when I managed to get ahold of a bottle before anyone else, I knew I had to try it out for myself. I made sure to have plenty of protective gloves on hand before even handling the container and I also made sure to take out my contacts and put my glasses on. Don’t want to lose an eye to this stuff

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The bottle is tiny - extremely tiny. Here’s a picture of the bottle compared to a 6 A.M. bottle.

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The bottles are reverse threaded so that none of the crystals fall out when you unscrew the top. Inside there is a blue stopper that looks a lot like a salt shaker. The speck that you see towards the top right of the image below is a capsaicin particle from the shaker.

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Here’s a slighty better view of the bottle - You can see the threading and the capsaicin crystal a little better.

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After racking my brain on how I could try this stuff without seriously injurying myself, I decided to mix one crystal into tomato soup. I took a can of standard condensed tomato soup, mixed with one can of water and brought it to a boil. The capsaicin crystal will not mix like any of the other Blair’s A.M. line, which makes perfect sense, since it’s a dry crystal and not an oil based extract. So the only way to liquify this stuff is to heat it up. So using tweezers and gloves, I picked up the tiny crystal.

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And into the pot of soup it goes.

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It’s important to note that the heat will not distribute throughout the soup right away, you need to continue to heat it up, preferably while stirring with a disposable spoon. After about 5 mintues of boiling, my soup was ready to go. First bite was not that hot, so I had the wife take a bite. She threatened divorce once she could speak again, so I tried it again. Then it was hot! So I took a few more bites and had to toss the rest of the pot away - it was too frickin’ hot! And it’s very rare for me to say something is too hot. But this is the hottest hot sauce product known to man. You can buy Blair’s 16 Million Reserve from Sweat ‘N Spice if you think you’re up to the challenge.

But then again, the bottle looks so spiffy, you probably won’t be able to bring yourself to open it. Don’t worry, your taste buds are already thanking you…

Okay, my wife is a lot smarter then me. I admit it. And I benefit greatly from her being smarter then me, the following case in point. She was reading an old edition of the New England Journal of Medicine and came across an article / letter regarding “Hunan Hand”
Apparently an afflicted young man had rushed to the hospital, moaning and waving his hands all about. The patient was experiencing dizziness, acute pain and his pulse was dropping. The young man had been sanding furniture and after a days work, had decided to prepare a traditional Chinese lunch with peppers and chicken. While washing the peppers, the pungent chemicals got to the pain receptors at the tips of his fingers, the largest concentration of pain receptors in the human body.

Talk about scary, I’ve experience chile pepper pain, but nothing this intense apparently. The young man was treated with lidocaine and released with not long lasting effects, except quite possibly a new found respect for chile peppers.

In response, yet another doctor wrote in and described very similar incidents, with all the cases he described coming from the Texas ~ New Mexico area. The treatment he recommended was vinegar. Apparently the vinegar neutralizes the pain.

I’m going to be sure to try this one out, or at least buy some vinegar for the next time I do something stupid. And believe me, I’ll do something stupid soon.