Woody’s Wing House – Spiciest Dish In Columbus Series

More wings! Tons of TV and a wide open dining room, we wandered to Woody’s Wing House to pound through some of their wings.

With only one location, we hadn’t heard to much about Woody’s before we headed there to test out their sauces. Tucked away at the northeast corner of 270 and 23 on Campus View Blvd, Woody’s is home to 70 huge TVs, wide open seating areas and wings. Lots and lots of wings. Past that it’s standard bar fare with pizza, burgers, wraps and subs, but we were there for the 5th Degree sauce.

With almost 20 sauces, they have 5 variations of their Degree sauce (1 through 5) with 5th Degree sitting at the top of their spicy list. We were excited to give them a shot, but first we snagged some Smokey BBQ Chips.

The chips are dusted in Woody’s Smokey Rub and were the right kind of soggy and you just can’t go wrong with smoked meats. We went with the pork obviously (would any of you not choose smoked pork over smoked chicken?) and plowed through those as we waited on the friends that suggested trying Woody’s out.

Now onto the main event. Woody’s wings are advertised as lightly breaded, but can be ordered without. They have four dry rubs including Cajun, Smokey Q, Parmesan Ranch and Lemon Pepper. The sauces are a fairly standard mix but include some interesting flavors like Hawaiian Heat, Spicy Italian and Diablo-Q. The last is new and got me thinking about the Reaper BBQ wings at Atlas Tavern, so I snagged five Diablo-Q and five 5th Degree. Similar to Roosters, you can combine sauces or get them extra wet, but we stayed with the standard sauce smattering.

If you could not determine, 5th Degree on the left, Diablo-Q on the right.

A bit more breading than expected, but with the wings out we gave the initial whiff. A deep inhale got the lady of the farm to cough at the 5th degree, but the Diablo-Q got a “those actually smell really good” (as if BBQ sauce is ever going to smell bad). The 5th Degree smelled like a standard buffalo-style wing, high in vinegar with a decent heat.

Initial tasting of the 5th degree I was a bit disappointed. Spicier than the Nu-Killer at Roosters, but out of our top five for sure. The wing itself was a good cook, the meat fell off pretty easily and the breading was a tad soggy (not that we mind that). A bit of sweat on the brow, but overall the 5th Degree was surprisingly easy going.

These are the Diablo-Q wings. The sauce is thick, sweet, smokey and incredibly spicy. Maybe it was the mindset going in, but I was blown away by how spicy these wings were. Thickness seems to be a killer when it comes to spicy wing sauces. My nose exploded and turned me into a disgusting sniffling monster. Mouth-breathing took over and I stared at the rest of the wings, wondering what had happened. Diablo-Q was a lie. I’d argue these wings are twice as spicy as the 5th Degree and will fight anyone that says otherwise.

Through the snot, I asked our waitress what was in these wings. She was unsure initially, but went to the kitchen and check for us. It’s still a bit of a mystery, but it seems to be mostly made of a pepper that is hotter than a habanero, but less hot than a ghost pepper. That’s a variability of 300,000 to roughly 1 million SHU. We’d put our money on Red Savina’s. Thinking about these wings again has got my mouth watering.

We’ve had a lot of wings over the last few months so figuring out where this goes on our list is a bit tough. After much consideration we are placing it as #5 overall, just under There Will Be Tears from OH Pizza and Wings/Brew. Definitely one of the spicier and definitely one of our favorite spicy BBQ sauces in the city. We’ll definitely be heading back this football season to try these again. Hopefully they stay on the menu, because they are awesome. We plopped the 5th Degree just under Tweeter’s Devil’s Breath.

You can find Woody’s at 161 E Campus View Blvd. Columbus, OH 43235.

Look below for more in our spiciest dish in Columbus series and hit us up if you have any suggestions that are not already on our list!

You can find us on Facebook, Instagram or contact us via our contact page.

More From Our Quest To Find The Spiciest Dish