Downtown Maplewood is a happening place. Craft breweries, good coffee, crazy donuts, etc… I like all of these things. There are also a couple sports bars with very similar names: The Post and The Wood. I had a great experience, wings and otherwise reviewing The Post on Valentine’s Day and decided yesterday it was time to take The Wood’s wings for a spin.

Normally I have a reviewing companion but I was flying solo for this visit so I sat a the bar. I’ve been to The Wood twice before and eaten their wings once. But The last time I had their wings was at the end of a bar crawl, so my recollection of the whole event is probably a bit off.

I called The Wood a sports bar earlier, but I don’t think that is exactly true. They have a lot of TVs with sports on, but their walls are adorned primarily in alcohol signs and not sports memorabilia. Their beer selection is also good. They feature a handful of crafts both local and national on tap and have a reasonably sized but well curated craft bottles/cans selection.

On their menu, The Wood separates their wings out from the appetizers section and into a section of their own. This is an ambitious move, and sets expectations pretty high. The sauce selection probably warrants the distinction: Signature Sauce, Spicy, Mild, Honey BBQ, Lemon Pepper and Teriyaki are your choices. In addition, the menu suggests you can “mix things up and trash your sauce (mild, signature and spicy only).”

Now I’ve never reviewed the wings at the Wood before, so normally I would order the Hot wings. Instead, I threw caution to the wind and went with their hottest option, the Signature Wings. I admire a place that chooses to make their spiciest sauce the one they highlight. Here’s how the wings are described:

One pound of wings, sauced, trashed and sauced again with our signature house-made habanero sauce.

Habanero… let’s go! As I alluded to before, I have had the Signature Wings from The Wood before, and pretty much all I remember about them is that they were really spicy. This turned out to still be true.

The wings themselves are served on an appropriately sized oval plate with the traditional ranch and celery accompaniment. Appearance wise, they look great. They are medium sized and appear crispy.

The habanero situation is noticeable in smell as well as in appearance. These things look like a force to be reckoned with. The sauce is thick and plentiful. The wings are well coated and the extra sauce hangs out in piles on the plate rather than spreading out like a liquid.

While the heat kicks in right from the beginning, there is also a sweetness. I am pretty sure that it’s pineapple, but who knows really. The point is, there are a lot of dimensions to this sauce and it is incredibly tasty in addition to being incredibly spicy.

The chicken itself was good. It was just a tad dry, but not offensively so. There was a lot of good textural diversity between the thick sauce, the skin and the chicken.

But damn, if they aren’t perhaps the hottest wings I’ve reviewed here. The couple next to me at the bar had ordered these wings on their previous visit, and they both agreed that they were delicious but uncomfortably spicy for them. These people also both claimed to have pretty high spice tolerances. They went for the standard Hot wings instead this time.

Another great anecdote came from Brian, my great and friendly bartender, who relayed a story of a family ordering these wings: A family of five came in, a mom a dad and three boys between the ages of 7-13. The dad, confident as could be, ordered three pounds of the signature wings. The server places the order and brings them out. Within minutes, the kids were in the bathroom throwing water on their face. The dad, perhaps embarrassed about his choice, plowed through the wings with even greater vigor and remarked to the server “These are so spicy, but also they are so good.” This is a succinct summary.