OUR intrepid Sunday Post man takes on burger challenge, with hilarious results
What’s the most painful thing you’ve ever experienced?
For me it was when a dentist pulled out one of my molars, without applying quite enough anaesthetic.
The next day was spent alternately crying and dribbling into a sink.
Nothing, short of me defying male biology and spontaneously giving birth, could hurt more. Or so I naively thought.
Last week I was volunteered for something called a Hot Chilli Cheeseburger Challenge at Hogan’s Sandwich Bar in Kilmarnock.
You’ve probably seen one of these contests while flicking through the digital channels.
It typically involves a hopelessly-enthusiastic American chap eating a pile of grub coated in something exceptionally hot, like sulphuric acid or magma from Earth’s core.
They call it Man v Food with Adam Richman but it should be called Masochist v Not Really Food At All.
It was my job to be that masochist last week by attempting to eat Hogan’s incredibly spicy hamburger, one of the most difficult food challenges in the world. 
Mark Hogan prepares the burger – C Austin / DC Thomson
The burger is topped with three Carolina Reapers, the hottest chillies on the planet.
They’re so strong they measure 2.2 million on the Scoville scale, which sounds like something they should measure radiation on.
To put it in perspective, that’s around 500 times hotter than a jalapeno.
As if that wasn’t enough, Mark Hogan, caf owner and creator of the challenge, whacks on two more ghost pepper chillies a mere 1.4m Scovilles each.
He’s not finished yet. The patty is injected with cheese mixed with a special spicy sauce.
The bap has spicy sauce spread on it while the burger is then topped with jalapenos and, you’ve guessed it, more spicy sauce.
Mark’s chilli burger no longer sounds like a plate of grub but something to be denounced by the United Nations.
It doesn’t help when Mark produces a legal disclaimer. At first I reckon it’s all for show until he insists it needs countersigned by an independent witness.
One signature from a gleeful Sunday Post photographer later and the burger is on the grill.
If I can eat it within 25 minutes I won’t have to pay the £10 bill and I’ll bag myself a natty t-shirt too.
Mark first hands me a pair of protective gloves the Carolina Reaper is so spicy that it burns bare skin.
While I ponder the damage it’ll do to my large intestine, Mark cheerily explains how trying to eat the Carolina Reaper chilli has landed some brave idiots in hospital.
Whatever I do, I shouldn’t rub my eyes. Or go for a pee, for eye-watering reasons.
I take my first bite and nothing. It’s a bit spicy, but perfectly edible. Quite tasty, in fact.
The first bite of the beast – C Austin / DC Thomson Perhaps I’m just one of those people who can handle really spicy foods? Perhaps I’ll get my burger for free? Maybe I’ll evennowait.
Pain. Scorching pain. An inferno from the depths of hell has been turned up to 11, in my gob.
Satan himself strikes up the fiery orchestra and begins to perform a searing tapdance on my tonsils. I try a couple of more bites, but the agony in my mouth quickly takes over everything.
All sound is replaced with roaring static, and my lips feel like I’ve accidentally snogged a tube of Deep Heat.
A pair of council workers in for their lunchtime rolls look over and I try to give them the thumbs-up, but instead only manage to bray like a wounded horse and slabber.
With around half of the burger eaten, I give up. Nobody needs a T-shirt this much.
Only milk helps and Mark tries to explain why but I’ve gone deaf and am too busy chucking down the white stuff like it’s the only antidote to a poison I’ve been given.
The pain all-too-gradually subsides over the next 15 minutes and I’m slowly gripped by a strange elated feeling, like I’ve survived a life-changing experience.
I came through the burger challenge unscathed or at least I thought I did until around eight hours later. The details aren’t suitable for a family newspaper.
So let’s just say Imodium have sent me a loyalty card, while the Johnny Cash song Ring of Fire has a painfully vivid new meaning.
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