If I had to choose, I would have to say cayennes. I typically use them all year round (dried) and throw some fresh pods into cooking when I pick them. They are a good all round, general purpose pepper in my opinion.

jamaican hot chocolate habaneros there hot and taste wonderful

joe

My all time favorite pepper so far is a chiltepin. Has a nice kick to it but not so hot that you cant taste the food. They are small enough that you can limit the amount you put into whatever you are cooking/eating. Have great flavor. Go great in dipping sauces, salsas, etc.

It's always been my experience that kids learn really fast not to eat the chiltepins. In fact, I absolutely have never ever heard of a kid picking a chile off of a chiltepin plant and eating it - EVER :)

However, we eat lots of chiles and my daughter grew up eating them and knows exactly what they are.Even as a baby she would eat mild chiles. She totally loved tabasco peppers. When you offered her chiles she would decline, then would eat them in food :)

I could never grow just one! That being said, one that I will always grow is limon chiles. They are hearty, prolific, and have a nice burn that lasts and lasts!

That's a tough question because they all have different uses. I guess jalapeno would be my choice. Stuff em. Pickle them. Use them fresh etc.

Cayenne would be a close second and I think would work well for you. They are generally really productive which is a big plus if you're only growing one plant. I hang all of my cayennes (and similar peppers) from a string in the kitchen. If I don't get around to using them fresh, they dry out nicely and get thrown in a jar or put through the coffee grinder. It's an easy way to enjoy peppers year round.

Tabascos could be another choice. Like the cayenne, they are quite productive and easy to dry out. They are really juicy when fresh and are my favorite pepper to put on burgers or pizza.

For the scenario you gave I would suggest growing the Wild Brazil (aka Cumari). It's a bush type plant that does very well in a container. The pods are bite sized, yellow, very hot, and they taste great. It produces extremely well, and is relatively low maintenance for a pepper plant.

Alan

I am not sacrificing any to kids my theory is they will probably only make that mistake one time!

serrano or cayenne.......

Serranos are so plentiful off the plant and neutral in taste. It's great heat (2-5x hotter than a jalapeno depending on who you ask...closer to 2-3x at best if you ask me) in a very productive plant. I love cooking with it. No de-skinning needed and they're easy to portion out.

They also seem to be low on the green/bitter taste when harvested in very green stages.

They do have a nice taste when they ripen to red, but it's nothing too exciting.

New to chile peppers, but my son who has a bright set of lab windows facing south where he grows nagas (a few million on the scoville), habaneros and thai hots. You should be able to grow in a good bright window. He is in New Hampshire.
Have fun, myself am trying cayenne, habanero, holy mole and bells.
Keski

What a great bunch of suggestions. Thanks to you all.
reyna1 & nitis your points are well made on kids not repeating their chili mistakes... so I think I might try to reclaim some space from the flowers out back and get growing.
In the meantime, I just discovered a place yesterday that has a steady supply of fresh habaneros for me, so I think I might hold off growing those for the moment and try one of the other suggestions, for variety.
Now I have my list, I just have to see what I can get my hands on the fastest...
Many thanks again.

You have a steady supply of habs but mentioned you use tabasco and cayenne powder and wanted something around 8000 scovilles. Habs are 200 000 scovilles and up depending on which type. Isn't that too hot for you?

Indeed, habs I find very fiery: two ultra-thin slices of a hab can take care of a whole family-size pot of food for me, so having found a store that keeps a regular supply of them means I can get them occasionally as or when needed. No need to have a bush-load and not enough bolognaise to dilute them all with!
I have got my hands on some cayenne seeds and hoping they will get going nice and rapidly. I think I can likely get the right amount of fire from them and decent flavour too, using some of the brilliant sauce instructions on various threads in this forum. I have no ambitions about making home-made sauces in large quantities very often, so apart from an occasional blow-out (large-scale marinade production in BBQ season, for example), I think habs and the likes of them would mostly be wasted on me. Perhaps I need more practice eating the really strong stuff.