Elijah's Xtreme Reaper Sauce - My First Carolina Reaper

I chose Elijah's Xtreme Reaper Sauce because it won a first place Scovie for 2017 in the XXX Hot Sauce category.  On top of that, it just sounded really interesting from the ingredients list, which includes black cherries, cranberry sauce, Kentucky bourbon whiskey and vanilla.

I also grabbed it because the Carolina Reaper secured a Guinness World Record certification as the  hottest chili pepper in the world in 2013. 

Yes, I finished a third of the bottle before remembering to photograph it...

 You can immediately smell the cherries and vanilla as soon as you open the bottle.  The ad copy for the sauce proclaimed "tastes great on just about everything… even ice cream!"  So I immediately put it on ice some vanilla ice cream.  The flavor and aroma are so desserty that I'm actually having a hard time imagining putting it on anything else.  Maybe it would be good on some pork or chicken where the sweet, fruity taste might make a good complement.  But I definitely wouldn't add this to soup or a burrito.

Look at that beautiful texture.  You can see little chunks of cherry and cranberry.

It tastes pretty much exactly like it smells.  I don't detect as much tartness from the cranberries as I might have liked, but the cherry flavor tinged with vanilla is really prominent and quite good.

Iced cream, anyone?  With a little leftover birthday cake bonus.

And the Carolina Reaper heat delivers.  I thought it wasn't all that hot when I took my first taste, but it really built up on me.  I think the sweetness of the sauce masks the heat a bit at first, and that effect was probably enhanced by the sugar and milk of the ice cream I was eating it with.  I think I'd also hyped it up in my mind as the sauce that would definitely kill me due to the Carolina Reaper's world record heat.  But whatever my preconceptions, the sauce definitely packs a high, lingering spicy heat.  The end result is really exciting and delicious.

I recommend this sauce if you perk up at the idea of a very spicy, sweet sauce drizzled over ice cream.  But to my taste, this sauce's uses are somewhat limited by the desserty flavor profile, which makes this a little bit of a gimmick sauce in my book.

Very tasty, but I can't see using it every day.

Side note:  My wife had a bit of an allergic reaction to this sauce, which sucks because she found it really delicious, despite not being into super-spicy foods.  She has a really severe allergy to bell peppers, but she's always had good luck with jalapeños, habañeros, serranos, etc.  So generally the mildest of peppers makes her throat close, but hot peppers are fine.  This was her first time tasting anything containing Carolina Reaper peppers, so it's possible she's actually allergic to those.  None of the other listed ingredients are foods she reacts to, so it's either the Reapers or maybe there's a little bit of unlisted bell pepper in this sauce.