Wing Kings – ‘Earn Your Wings’ Experience

Welcome back to the bimonthly MyMiltonKeynes Experience review!

In this month’s edition Christopher Beck, Marketing and Operations Coordinator at MyMiltonKeynes, takes on the ‘Earn your Wings’ challenge at Wing Kingz, located at the Xscape Milton Keynes. The challenge involves 15 wings, ten minutes and only one drink. My apologies, I forgot to mention, the wings are coated in the world’s hottest chili…THE CAROLINA REAPER.

To give you some idea of the Carolina reaper, here are two ‘fun facts’:

1. The Carolina Reaper chilli is bred in a lab, developed by Ed Currie. Cross breeding the La Soufriere pepper from Saint Vincentand a Naga Viper pepper from Pakistan,^[3] and was named “Reaper” due to the shape of its tail.
2. A Jalapeno is 3500 on the Scoville scale (a fun little scale that measures how hot something is via its pungency), but the reaper is 1,641,183. So, by my calculations, my favourite hot pizza is 1,637,683 less spicy.

Ok, so before we found out if Chris can beat the reaper, here is some background on Wing Kingz:

It opened back on the 13^th October 2021 to much fanfare with celebrity guests, DJ’s, prizes and of course chicken wings.

The owners have over ten years’ experience in award winning retail and hospitality. Between them, they realised that in the United States of America, sports bars and wing focused restaurants were a huge success but, in the UK, there were next to none. So, with both owners being from Milton Keynes, they decided to pursue their dream and subsequently opened Wing Kingz in their hometown and planning their next venue opening in 2023.

Now the challenge, I arrive to the yellow and black branding of the venue and get seated by the smartly dressed, uniformed staff, who kindly point out the leader board of the madness I’m about to undertake.

The board runs from 1^st –15^th place, with the fastest time on the board at 2.18 minutes and the slowest 9.55 minutes. I’m then trying to do the math’s in my head of how I can end up winning this or at least save some face to appear on the board. If I manage 2.5 wings every 30 seconds, then I can complete the task in three minutes. Oh, how wrong I was, but more on that to come…

I’m asked for the fifth time if I am sure I wish to proceed and presented with a disclaimer to sign as well as clinical gloves.

You could easily get wrapped up in the moment, until the disclaimer and gloves are presented and at which point it really does hit home what you’re about to voluntarily take on.

One sentence of the disclaimer says risk of personal injury, illness or possible loss of life…eeeek!

It also signs off with ‘You’ve got this? You’re brave!’. Guess all that’s left to say is good luck – we promise you’re going to need it.

A few minutes after signing my life away, my beautifully presented wings are brought out to me, I take a deep breath and begin. I am laser focused, tucking away. 33 seconds in and I’ve managed 4 wings, at which point I’m thinking I’m going to smash this. Champion Chris, bells and whistles, bunting will line the street….and BANG the reaper train hits me.

It’s safe to say I managed another half a wing before completely giving up after 59 seconds.

Now, first and foremost I must say the venue, the staff and the food are first class and I will definitely be returning again as a customer. However, I will not be doing the challenge for second time. I understand why people do it and I think it’s a wonderful addition to the city but the reaper well and truly beat me. The only advice I can give to anyone wishing to attempt it, it’s not for the faint of heart, but the staff at Wing Kingz will look after you.

To find out more about Wing Kingz, contact Ian on 01908 753057 or go to the Wing Kingz website https://www.thewingkingz.co.uk/

Quote “MyMiltonKeynes” and get 10% off food until the 1^st October 2022.