What does it mean when *this pepper* is the equivalent of 50 bottles of Tabasco?

Question

I thought that if you were to drink 50 bottles of Tabasco, the spiciness itself wouldn’t increase? So what does it mean?

In: Chemistry

Answer 1

No one should be talking about a specific pepper having any equivalence to a bottle of Tabasco. That’s the wrong way to frame the comparison and anyone who did is speaking inelegantly. You should always be comparing equal amounts.

Spiciness is measured on the Scoville scale. Originally this was measured by taking a unit of the spicy substance (let’s say 1 tablespoon) and dissolving it an amount of sugar water until the spiciness can no longer be detected by a panel of tasters.

So, if it took 9,000 tablespoons of sugar water to dilute 1 tablespoon of Tabasco sauce then we say that the Scoville rating of Tabasco is 9,000.