Rule number one is what?
Blue cheese.
Wings were born in Buffalo. The rest of the country has been dipping them in the wrong thing ever since. This is the standard: what a wing is, how to eat one, and the Code every wing eater lives by.
Drag anything from the basket into a dip. Try the ranch. We dare you.
Pick a wing, a fry or a veggie and drag it into a dip.
Keyboard: press an item in the basket to pick it up, then press a dip to dunk it.
Everybody serves wings now. Most of them are wrong. Here's the real thing, the way Buffalo has made it since the 1960s.
Usage: “Twenty wings, medium, extra crispy. Extra blue cheese.” Nobody in Buffalo says “Buffalo wings.” They're just wings.
The skin is the crust. Wings are fried with no breading, no batter and no flour, until the fat renders out and the skin crackles. A good wing crunches through the sauce instead of going limp under it.
The sauce is two things: vinegary cayenne hot sauce and melted butter. The hot sauce brings tang and heat. The butter rounds it off and makes it cling. A good wing tastes like chicken first and heat second.
Cold, chunky, funky blue cheese dressing. It cools the heat, its tang cuts the butter, and it's been the dip from day one. Celery and carrots come along to cool you down and to scoop.
A whole wing has three parts. Two of them get eaten.
Four steps. None of them involve an oven or a bag of breadcrumbs.
Split the whole wing at the joints into a drum and a flat. The tip comes off and goes to the stock pot.
Straight into hot oil, naked. Around 10 to 12 minutes at 375°F, until the skin is deep golden and crackling.
From the fryer into a bowl of hot sauce and melted butter. Toss until every wing is coated. No brushing, no drizzling.
Blue cheese, celery, carrots and a stack of napkins taller than the basket.
Ratios are a rough guide. Every kitchen guards its own, and most add extra cayenne or hotter peppers once you go past Hot.
John Young starts serving whole, breaded wings in his tomato-based mumbo sauce. He always said he was first, and in 2013 he was inducted into the National Buffalo Wing Hall of Flame.
At the Anchor Bar, Teressa Bellissimo fries wings and tosses them in hot sauce. The family tells it three ways: a late-night snack for her son Dominic's friends, a Friday-night treat for Catholic regulars, or a fix for a delivery of wings that should have been backs and necks.
Duff's starts selling wings. Buffalo has argued about who does them better ever since.
The City of Buffalo declares Chicken Wing Day.
Ranch is the most popular wing dip in America. That's why this site exists.
Same wing, two very different experiences, and two very different kinds of people. Both are protected under Article VIII. Neither side will ever admit the other has a point.
Ratings by the Never Ranch Wing Council. Not up for debate. (Everything is up for debate.)
Natural habitat: corner booth, sauce on the side, napkins folded.
Natural habitat: standing at the bar, game on, one hand free for a high five.
Like both equally?You're a Diplomat. You eat whatever's left, keep the peace, and you're quietly the happiest person at the table.
Five questions. No wrong answers. Except ranch.
Two bones, three ways to get the meat off. Pick one and practice. Do it clean once in front of your friends and you'll never pay for a beer again.
Two bones out, one boneless bite left behind. The showpiece.
Hold the flat by both ends and eat it like corn on the cob, side to side. Then go between the bones for the good stuff. Slower, messier, and nobody will judge you.
Hold the skinny end like a microphone. Rotate while eating. That's the whole thing. Drums were designed for people with somewhere to be.
In the bone bowl. Not back in the basket, not on the edge of the table and never on someone else's plate. See Article XII.
Twelve articles. Binding wherever wings are served. Read them, live them, and quote them to the next person who asks for ranch.
Being the rules, customs and plain common sense governing the chicken wing, as practiced in the city that invented it.
The dip is blue cheese. It has always been blue cheese.
In Buffalo, “Buffalo wings” is redundant. Just say “wings.”
No breading, no batter, no flour dredge. The skin is the crust.
Order them crispy or extra crispy and feel no shame. A soggy wing is a violation no matter how good the sauce is.
Sauce goes on after the fryer, in a bowl, with a toss. Never brushed, never drizzled, never poured on from across the room.
Hot sauce and butter, in proportion. Heat is a seasoning, not a dare. If you can't taste the chicken, the sauce won.
It cools, it crunches and it scoops blue cheese.
Your preference is protected. Taking the last flat without asking is not.
They're pieces of breaded breast meat: chicken nuggets in a costume. Eat them if you have to. Just don't call them wings inside city limits.
In a shared cup of blue cheese, you dip once per bite. If the cup is yours alone, do as you please.
Wings come by the ten. Ordering six is ordering a snack, and that's not what we're doing here.
Not back in the basket, not on the table and never on someone else's plate.
Ten questions. Pass and you're one of us. Fail and you're a Ranch Tourist, which is still allowed. Your ranch just has to wait outside.
Swear it, get your certificate, screenshot it and post it. Then tag the ranch person in your life.
I, your name, do solemnly swear to dip in blue cheese, to order my wings crispy, to respect the flat and the drum alike, to never call a nugget a wing, to put my bones in the bone bowl, and to never, ever, ranch.
This certifies that
has sworn the Oath of Blue Cheese and shall uphold the Buffalo Wing Code wherever wings are served.
Example certificate. Fill in your name to make it yours.
Saving and sharing don't work inside this preview. They do on neverranch.com.
Shirts for people who live by one rule. Rule number one is what? Blue cheese.
Royal blue, white lettering and a red swoop through the ranch. Built for December in Orchard Park.
NEVER RANCH. That's it. That's the hoodie.
Royal blue, white lettering and a red swoop through the ranch. Sunday headwear.
Keeps the sun out of your eyes and the ranch out of your life.
The seal from your certificate, worn over your heart.
Big, simple, impossible to misread from across the bar.
RULE #1 IS WHAT? on the front. BLUE CHEESE. on the back.
One bone. No fuss.
Two bones. Zero shortcuts.
Article VII of the Buffalo Wing Code: celery is a utensil.
Royal blue, white lettering and a red swoop through the ranch. Built for Sundays in Orchard Park.