Sugar Rush pepper plants

Peach, stripey, bullet, grenade, bell. One breeding line, and the heat is not the same on all of them.

By Debra Austin

Species: Capsicum baccatum

A line, not a single pepper

Sugar Rush is a Capsicum baccatum line. The peach is the one people mean when they say the name: fruity, aromatic, and on our table listed at 50,000 to 100,000 SHU. That is the hot band. A lot of writing on the internet calls the peach mild. Our number does not.

The rest are selections and crosses off that line. Stripey, bullet, grenade, gigantic, twisty, and the bells change the pod more than they change the species. Most of those are listed around 15,000 to 30,000 SHU. Sugar Rush White Bell Stripey is listed at 0 to 100. Read the plant, not the family name.

What made the cut

Anything with Sugar Rush in the name is here, including Sugar Rush x Mango and Ethiopian Pepper Tree x Sugar Rush Red. Those two are crosses. They carry the name, so they are on the page, and they are not the peach.

Bih Jolokia x Sugar Rush Peach is not here. That one is a superhot cross and it lives on the ghost pepper page. Putting it in this grid would wreck the heat range.

They are baccatums, so they also appear with the ajis. This page is the tighter list.

How hot a sugar rush is

Sugar Rush Peach is listed at 50,000 to 100,000 SHU. Most of the other selections on this page sit around 15,000 to 30,000. Sugar Rush White Bell Stripey is listed at 0 to 100. The name is not a promise that every pod is mild, and the peach is the one people misfile.

Growing them

Baccatum habit: tall, wiry, wide, and happy to keep setting pods once they start. A seven gallon pot is the comfortable size for a full plant. Stake the side branches. A peach plant with fruit on it will lean.

They handle a cool night better than a chinense. That is the practical reason to pick one if your season is short or the plant is going to live indoors. They are still large. A windowsill that fits a Thai will not fit a sugar rush.

Sugar Rush Peach on WikiPepper

The Sugar Rush we grow

Questions people ask

How hot is a sugar rush pepper?

It depends which one. Sugar Rush Peach is listed at 50,000 to 100,000 SHU. Most of the other selections are listed around 15,000 to 30,000. Sugar Rush White Bell Stripey is listed at 0 to 100 SHU.

What species are they?

Capsicum baccatum.

Is every sugar rush as hot as the peach?

No. The peach is the hot one on our list. The white bell stripey has essentially no heat.