I grew up in Upstate NY. A surprise, I'm sure! Rochester to be precise. In 1980, one of my high school friends and I began to become regulars at a little bar & grill called Hitchcock’s on the east side of the city. They had buffalo wing specials on Monday and Wednesday evenings. We would go and sit and discuss the issues of our youth and the order of the day over an order of wings. We would wait in anticipation until they brought the wings out and then with our mouths watering, we would slowly sink our teeth into this culinary delight. No sooner had we eaten a wing when we would both verbally begin the rating process. Crispness, taste, size, non-greasiness! Ahhh, Heaven!

Upon going to college at the University of Buffalo, I quickly began to scout out the best wing places there as well. When low on gas funds or without a vehicle, my two best friends and I would often brave a twenty-minute walk in sub-freezing temperatures and a couple feet of snow to walk to our favorite wing eatery. Rootie's Pump Room, the best in Buffalo at the time, to be warmed by the culinary heat of an order of Buffalo wings. Ahhh!

Ever since then wings quickly became my favorite food. While I lived in Rochester I consumed wings on average 10 meals a week; at different places of course. They were easily 75-80% of my diet then. I quickly began to know where the best wings could be found in Rochester as well as in Buffalo where I still spent a significant amount of time over the years. A rating system used to hang on my refrigerator rating the varying wings around the region in the most important categories: Taste of course, heat/flavor balance, wing size (not too big, not too small), whether they’re cooked crispy enough, enough sauce, etc. Today, I still keep tabs nationwide. More...

I subsequently spent two years in the U.S. Army in Europe, followed by my last two years of undergraduate school, and then graduate school, all out of the Rochester/Buffalo area. Unfortunately, at that time wings had not yet risen in popularity much beyond the Western New York region of Buffalo/Rochester.

I found it difficult to find wings and difficult if not impossible to find good wings at local establishments and few restaurants and bars were open to my giving them a good sauce recipe to have and use. It was at this point that I began to make my own. I started making my own buffalo wing sauce in 1990. It developed slowly and I made changes as revelations would hit me, often after tasting something unique in an order of wings that I had eaten somewhere.

It was only once I moved to Northern Virginia that I realized how good my sauce was based on feedback received by everyone that tried them. It was virtually impossible for me to find wings there either that were very good by Upstate NY standards. They are still not as available as they are in Upstate NY, but decent wings can be found although few superlative wing places exist around the nation in spite of the number of chains known for their wings, even today.

Since 1993 I had people tell me that I should market my sauce. I had gone into local establishments offering them my sauce recipes for free. Several restaurants refused my gracious offer without ever having even tasted it. My friends and I would have been satisfied to merely be able to have had a place to go for wings, beer, and some camaraderie. Oh well. Those silly geese!
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Anyway, as a result, here we are. Now the best wing sauce on the market is available in the foodservice industry as well as retail for consumers. Don’t believe that it’s the best out there? Try it and compare them to your favorite. Don't be surprised where you might see Wy's Wings popping up in the future although many restaurants that we serve do not broadcast the fact that they use Wy’s Wing Sauces lest their competition find out. In the meantime, we hope you truly enjoy Wy's Wing Sauces as much as others that eat them do.

Enjoy! Thank my friends for encouraging me to put it on the market!

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