Hundreds of visitors turned up the heat at Scone Palace at the weekend as the annual chilli festival took place.
Now in its second year the event celebrates all things spicy and the highlight of each day is a chilli-eating competition, in which participants vie to be the last one standing after consuming an increasingly hot array of raw chilli peppers.
In Saturday’s competition the group started with a jalapeno, which registers just 5,000-8,000 on the Scoville scale, before moving on to varieties including the Scotch bonnet, chocolate halbokia and pink tiger.
When it came to the infamous Dorset Naga chilli, measuring a tongue-blistering 923,000 Scovilles, just two of the original 10 contestants remained.
Allan Niven was forced to bow out, leaving Linda Richford to triumph for the second year in a row.
Picture gallery: Competitors feel the heat at Scone Chilli Festival
Organisers, the Clifton Chilli Club, had a further six varieties on hand had Allan not thrown in the towel. The fiercest of these is the world-record holding Carolina Reaper at 1.6 million on the Scoville scale.
Linda said her victory last year was a surprise, but she had spent the last year training her taste buds with special chilli pastes.
“I really enjoyed the competition, it was good fun,” she said.
“I didn’t realise I could eat anything that hot until last year. After last year I started growing chillies at home just so I could practise.
“In preparation I had lots of pastes, including one of 6.4 million Scovilles. You are just supposed to use a little bit at a time, but I put a load of it on toast. The whole house was choking, but I still ate it.”
However Linda, from Cumbernauld, said she planned to let someone else have a bite at the apple or chilli next year as she has no plans to defend her title.
“This is the last year I’ll be doing it,” she said.
“I want to give someone else a chance to win. Twice is enough.”
Runner-up Allan, from Kilmarnock, said he planned to win next year’s event.
He said: “I had the Dorset Naga and that was me finished, so I came in second place. I am a wee bit disappointed I didn’t come first; you always like to win something.
“I’m going to come back next year and win. I’ll practise to sharpen up my taste buds.”