We Had an Artist Paint a Jet Engine... With Hot Sauce

A few months ago, we hatched a plan with GE to create one of the world’s hottest hot sauces, 10³² K hot sauce. We wanted to honor the GE scientists whose work in thermodynamics has led to super materials that allow jet engines to burn hotter than at any time in history -- and we also wanted to see the panic on people’s faces when they realized they’d just ingested a delicious volcano.

Then we started to wonder, what else could we do with this hot sauce besides create rictuses of pain? The surprising answer: make art. No, really. We tapped San Diego artist Richard Hawk -- who creates copper oxidation masterworks through the use of acid solutions -- to render the image of a jet engine by dipping his brushes in our sauce, and letting its Carolina Reaper & Moruga Scorpion peppers serve as paint. The results are… well, hot.