Eating 1,000 Chicken Wing Flavors

Can you remember the first time you looked at a restaurant menu and saw over a dozen different chicken wing flavors to choose from? You probably started thinking about how great some of them sounded and then defaulted to classic Buffalo. How many trips back would it take to try all those other flavors? 

We remember first picking up the menu at the legendary Dew Drop Inn in Derby, CT and marveling at over 100 different flavor choices. It looked insane. We then learned that a local teenager had set a goal to try every flavor on that menu. And he accomplished it. “Over a hundred!” we thought! How could you possibly do that? Could an average person even list a hundred flavors? Highly doubtful.

Well, a few week ago my Wingaddicts partners and I rolled into Dew Drop again to cross off another milestone on our own personal chicken wing journey.  Starting back in 2020, we began a mission to highlight restaurants that serve wings. We’ve been to over 400 now and have eaten over 17,000 wings collectively. But maybe the most-notable adventure we’ve undertaken is to find and eat 1,000 different wing flavors. Last week we set ourselves up first-and-goal inside the ten yard line (to use football parlance) as we enjoyed “The Cubano Wing" for flavor number 900!

The Cubano wing was an off-menu creation by Dew Drop owner, Jason Carlucci. It consists of those perfect crispy Dew Drop wings (cooked from fresh) presented like an authentic Cubano sandwich beneath a blanket of ham, melted swiss cheese, fried pork belly and chopped pickles and served with a house-made Dijon dipping sauce. It's even better than it sounds and we’re anxious to see this classic wing added to the permanent menu later this fall.

The following week we added a dozen more to our hit list including some crazy ones like Cherry Habanero A La Mode, Spicy Pumpkin Sweet Heat "Witches Wings," Rootbeer Bourbon BBQ, Jalapeno Cream Cheese, Strawberry Reaper, Lemon Pucker Punch, Bruschetta, and Au Poivre wings! 

Then we got invited to be Celebrity Judges at the 18th Annual Southington CT Wing Fest and added sixteen more to the scoreboard including some insane combos like Bacon Mac & Cheese, Peach Cobbler, Chocolate Chamoy, Tasmanian Inferno (a combo of hot mustard, lemon pepper, and FU Hot sauce), Blazin' Banana, Maple Honey Reaper, Midnight Munchies (think Nacho Cheese wings with Dorito crumble), Caramel Apple, The Day After (a Thanksgiving-themed wing with turkey gravy, cranberry and stuffing breadcrumbs), California Cowboy, Strawberry Cheesecake, the Great Mistake, Roasted Hot Pepper, Strawberry Dream, Blackberry Bourbon BBQ and a chocolate peanut butter concoction named Funny Bone. That takes us to 934!

Keep an eye on our journey if you’re a flavor lover! Our plan is to eat 66 more flavors and hit our 1,000 mark by the next Super Bowl! Yes, we’ve had conversations with the Guinness Book of World Records and it's never been done before. Frankly, neither has 900!

If you’re one of the three other people in this world who care about such things, you can see our wing flavor list (alphabetically) on the Wingaddicts website (wingaddicts.com) We’d love your suggestions and recommendations for new restaurants and flavors we haven’t tried yet!

See you in the endzone! Wings up! 

Tommy Wyatt is co-founder of Wingaddicts and author of  this “Under the Wingfluence" blog. He can be reached directly by email at tommy@wingaddicts.com 

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