How Do You Confront 'Risk'? This Future BIZ Experiences Chomped Down on a 'Reaper' Chile Pepper With Grace and Daring. You try doing this! The Carolina Reaper has been rated by Guinness as "The World's Hottest Pepper."
By Joan Oleck
David Barrett, of Brooklyn, N.Y., isn't afraid of risk: He proved it -- and then some -- Sunday at the annual Brooklyn Chile Pepper festival, by saying "yes" to an BIZ Experiences request that he down an entire North Carolina "Reaper" ghost pepper.
This was an actual accomplishment for Barrett, the general manager of The Abbey Bar in Williamsburg, but also an BIZ Experiences-in-the-making: ("am planning to own my own spot in the next few years," the 30-year-old wrote us).
Related: 7 Risks Every BIZ Experiences Must Take
The Reaper, a bright-red, scary-looking thing, supplied by Kitchen Garden Farm of Sunderland, Mass, has been rated by Guinness as "The World's Hottest Pepper." Geez, wish we'd known that when we issued the dare.
And, when it comes to the North Carolina Reaper, we're talking hot: like ten times as hot as the hottest thing you've ever dared swallow. And poor Dave survived the ordeal -- eyes and nose streaming, saliva dripping, face pinched into a grimace -- to tell about it. His girlfriend, Michelle Krivo, meanwhile, looked on with nothing but love for her man (and perhaps the unspoken question: You're doing this, why?).
Not once did Barrett utter any death threats or take a swing at us. Now, that's our idea of confronting risk with grace and daring. But 30-year-old Barrett's not done. Next week, he takes on his next risk: the Iron Man race (a 2.4-mile swim, 112-mile bike ride, 26.2-mile runners' marathon) in Cambridge, Md., having done a previous Iron Man in Boulder, Colo., last year. Sure sounds like an BIZ Experiences-in-the-making to us.
Burn on, big guy. And thanks for being such a good sport.
