Elijah’s Xtreme Regret Hot Sauce Review

If there’s one thing to know about Elijah’s Xtreme Regret Hot Sauce: It’s aptly named, packing an enormous amount of spiciness in that bottle (near ghost pepper level spiciness!) This is not a hot sauce for those that merely dabble in heat. Extreme eaters, though: Here’s a bottle of pure fire. But, how does the flavor stack up against a spiciness this big? Is it just all heat? And is it usable outside of hot sauce dares? We dive into a bottle to answer it all.

Flavor

You know Elijah’s Xtreme Regret Hot Sauce is going to be incredibly hot from a simple glance at its ingredients list. It starts with two of the hottest peppers in the world atop a laundry list of ingredients: Trinidad Scorpion and Carolina Reaper chili pepper, garlic, carrots, tomato paste, apple cider vinegar, salt, sugar, garlic, acetic and citric acids (acidity regulators), onion, lemon, passion fruit (citric extracts), sugar cane vinegar, xanthin gum (thickener), and ascorbic acid (antioxidant).

We’ll get into the heat below. Just know for now that this is a hot sauce that reaches an extreme level of spiciness. Leading off with Trinidad Moruga Scorpion and Carolina Reaper is about as bold as you get.

The minute you open the bottle, you get a delicious sweet smell. It’s that mix of carrots, tomato paste, apple cider vinegar, and sugar (along with the fruitiness of those Chinense chilies) that are front and center with the aroma.

That sweetness carries through in the flavor, and — if you can get beyond the intense heat you experience on first bite — it’s really quite tasty. The backend has a really nice garlicky undertone, too. It provides some nice depth instead of this sauce leaning totally into crazy heat.

Think of it like a sweet, fruity kick in the ass and you’ll know what it’s like eating Elijah’s Xtreme Regret Hot Sauce. It’s the type of flavor you only get from super-hot hot sauces when they opt for fresh pepper flavors instead of pepper extracts. That spiciness is crazy hot, but not harsh — allowing the natural flavors here to really shine through.

On the sodium: There’s 100 mg per teaspoon serving, or 4% of your daily value. Granted, sauces this hot, how likely is it you’re using so much of this to worry too much on the overall salt. For most, a few drops is plenty.

Heat Balance

Elijah’s Xtreme Regret has a great backstory. You can read about it here, but the short of it is this hot sauce was created from a passion shared by father and son (throughout the son’s formative years and into adulthood) to create a “more flavorful, thicker, hotter, hot sauce.”

That they do with the inclusion of two of the hottest chilies in the world: Carolina Reaper (1.4 million to 2.2 million Scoville heat units) and Trinidad Moruga Scorpion (1.2 million to 2 million SHU.) To put that in perspective, a common jalapeño pepper averages around 5,250 SHU total.

So, these are big time chilies, and one of the joys of Elijah’s Xtreme Regret Hot Sauce is that it lets those peppers shine, both in heat and flavor. This a true super-hot hot sauce: no massive dilution with water, vinegar, or another liquid and flavor pairings that highlight the natural fruity sweetness you find in both of these chilies.

The listed Scoville heat rating for it is 800,000 Scoville heat units, and I don’t doubt it. This is wicked hot. Think of it this way: super-hot fresh ghost peppers starts a 855,000 SHU. Elijah’s Xtreme Regret comes pretty darn close to matching the same level of spiciness.

The spiciness immediately hits you in the back of your throat and linger for a few minutes. It builds the more you layer it up, so I suggest going in small drops along your plate to see how much you can handle. Seriously, this isn’t a sauce you mess around with.

After you get past the heat shock, you’ll be able to taste the sweetness and garlic undertones. There’s a real depth to the flavor of Elijah’s Xtreme Regret, not just the harsh heat you get from extracts that tend to kill any flavor beyond the spiciness. And that flavor is big enough to stand up to the extreme heat.

Usability

It’s tough to gauge usability with extreme hot sauces like this. They’re by nature disadvantaged due to the mega-spiciness.

It should go without saying that if you’re not into extreme hot sauces, then Elijah’s Xtreme Regret is likely not very usable for you. Sure, you can enjoy a few drops here or there, but you’re likely better off with a hot sauce more inline with your heat balance.

But if your one that likes to set your mouth aflame, then you’re going to love the usability here. It’s that flavor and heat duo combined that makes it a ton of fun on foods of all types.

Elijah’s Xtreme Regret goes great with wings, in chili, and on grilled meats. I tried it as an addition to my BBQ sauce, and just a few drops added plenty of spiciness to a perviously mild sauce. I also added a few drops onto a BBQ sandwich, and the fruity heat really was a standout. I even got that touch of garlic from just those few drops.

Just remember — a few drops is likely all you need to turn a bland dish into a fiery one. Don’t go throwing down a teaspoon-full on first use, or you’ll be hurting.

Collectibility

This hot sauce has a ton going for it in terms of collectibility: Fun family backstory, ominous hot sauce name, and a heat/flavor combo that walks the talk of its branding.

Elijah’s Xtreme Regret’s label is a perfect artistic example of what is waiting for you inside this bottle — a scorpion crawling out of a skull. It’s an obvious reminder of the sting those scorpion peppers in here will give you. And, frankly, what you may look like if you go too far with this hot sauce.

Plus: You’ll be supporting a father-and-son, family-owned business that’s passionate about making outstanding hotter hot sauces. That’s pure win too.

The Score

Elijah’s Xtreme Regret Hot Sauce is a delicious combination of extreme heat and fruity sweetness. There’s more depth here than many super-hot sauces and very little dilution keeping you from the Carolina Reaper and scorpion pepper’s super-spiciness and natural sweetness.