Article: BALL OF FIRE CHIP HEARN'S HOT-SAUCE EMPIRE PEDDLES SOME 3,000 MIXTURES OF BOTTLED HEAT. MORE AMAZING IS THAT HE'S SAMPLED NEARLY EVERY ONE.

Yo, Chip! Chip Hearn! Sit yourself down over here and pull up a bottle or two of hot sauce. After all, you've tasted more of this lethal stuff than just about anyone who's still got a tongue to talk about it. You're a large man with a large appetite for chiles, Chip. Dig in.

We're sitting at the 150-bottle tasting bar inside Peppers, Hearn's hot-sauce emporium, and this sure ain't the bayou, y'all. The store is located in a suburban-style shopping mall in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, a resort town that's dead calm during the off-season. It's part of the 50-year-old Hearn's hot-sauce empire, which also includes wholesale, mail order, and Internet sales (www.peppers.com). True, his is not a name ...

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