The story starts in 1930s Nashville with Thornton Prince, a man with a reputation for staying out. A woman he'd wronged cooked him fried chicken loaded with every hot pepper in the kitchen. It was meant as punishment.

He loved it. He and his brothers turned it into a business, and hot chicken became a category.

Two things about that never changed. It was made to be too much — the heat isn't a seasoning choice, it's the entire point. And it stains everything it touches, because the spice goes on after the fry, not into the batter.

We didn't invent it. We just refuse to make it polite.