Satan’s Spit: Shop owner says chilli spray that injured 11 people in Bunnings incident is ‘popular’ with chefs

It took one phone call and a 20-minute drive to find a bottle of Satan’s Spit — the same chilli spray that put almost a dozen people in hospital and a man behind bars for more than a year after it was unleashed in a Bunnings store.

The 30ml bottle of liquid made from chilli extract and alcohol is available from online retailers and stores across Australia, including a small shop tucked inside Morley’s Coventry Village shopping centre.

Phillip Botha, who runs the Spice Wagon & Latino Grocer, said the “popular” product could cause serious harm if used incorrectly.

“It’s not the top seller in the shop, but it’s popular more so with restaurants, I found quite a few restaurants use it for spicy chicken-wing challenges and stuff like that,” he told The West Australian.

“The odd person will come and say they heard of it, and they will ask is it really hot enough for their chicken or steak at home or whatever.

“It’s one of those products that I keep behind a locked cabinet, because I don’t like selling that to somebody that I think is too young — it’s not a product you want to prank with as we know.”

In a case that has made headlines around the country, Paul Hart, 52, was jailed for 16 months on Tuesday after he sprayed Satan’s Spit inside Northam Bunnings on Anzac Day last year.

The black liquid costs just $22.95 at the Morley shop and is sold in a pump bottle, which releases a fine spray.

It has a Scoville rating — a unit of measurement of spiciness — of 1.8 million. In comparison, pepper spray usually rates between 2 million and 5 million.

On the lower end of the scale, jalapeno peppers rate between 2500 and 10,000.

Hart purchased the item online and argued he intended to use it on chicken wings before he sprayed it inside the hardware store — sparking initial fears of a serious chemical spill when 11 people fell unwell and needed hospital treatment.

Hart claimed he intended to prank people by deploying a fart spray called Liquid Ass instead of the chilli substance, an argument that was rejected by Judge Felicity Zempilas, who described his offending as “deliberate”.

After learning of the Bunnings incident, Mr Botha sympathised with Hart’s victim’s.

He said while Satan’s Spit wasn’t the spiciest product available at his shop, it was still “painful immediately” when consumed or sprayed near someone’s face.

“Because it’s virtually pure chilli extract, it stings tremendously, straight away. It doesn’t necessarily last as long as others, but it stings immediately,” he said.

“You get nauseous, you battle to breathe and your eyes well up and so does your blood rate.

“It’s used by chefs mostly as some of the heat (from fresh chilli) can dissipate during the cooking process, hence, it’s very, very useful, from that point of view that you can literally just spray it before you put it on the table.

“I had some chefs literally in the shop, telling me that they made a mistake — they actually sprayed it on their work benches, where extractor fans were, and the chefs had to run out of the kitchen.

“With sauces you literally drip them over your food, whereas the (Satan’s Spit) is designed to be a fine mist spray.”

CCTV obtained after Hart’s sentencing showed the former mine site chef glancing at the black bottle twice before spraying it multiple times, leaving customers unable to breathe and one person believing they were going to die.

Hart, who was charged with causing a poison to be administered, claimed he spent the morning before the offence drinking Wild Turkey, cider and champagne.

Judge Zempilas, in her sentencing remarks, told Hart: “You deliberately brought a noxious and a dangerous product to a public place. You knew which substance you released and were waiting to watch its impact.

“I find that you had no plausibly legitimate reason to take Satan’s Spit with you that day. You had not yet used the product but you knew it would be very, very hot.”