Wings at The Dew Drop Inn

Putting the “Ew” in “Dew”
Wacky Wings at The Dew Drop Inn, Derby
February 2023 – December 2024

As you see from the dates above, this was a multi-visit, multi-year project. As such, I will split this page up into my 3 visits.

Intro
Visit 1: Buffalo Hot, Imperial Coffee Stout Dry Rub, Tikka Masala Peanut Butter
Visit 2: Bruschetta, Pink Peppercorn Lemon Curd, Chocolate Habanero, Reese’s Cup
Visit 3: Bacon Parm Butter, Ranch BLT, Black Forest Cake
Conclusion

The littlest town in Connecticut goes big with its wings. The Dirty Derb.

Derby is tiny. Ridiculously tiny. Embarrassingly tiny. So tiny that its historical society museum is in an neighboring town. But hey, they’ve got top tier pizza (Roseland), a very good brewery (BAD SONS), and The Dew Drop Inn.

Two of these three are legendary in Connecticut, and BAD SONS has done very well, partnering with both restaurants to make a sort of triangle of gluttony in Derby. (I don’t mean that as a bad thing.)

I don’t know the full history of the Dew Drop, just that it’s a neighborhood bar that’s been around for a very long time. It used to be a biker bar and a dive. It still retains hints of both to be honest, which isn’t necessarily a negative. I do not know the history of its kitchen or menu, but I do know that in 2006 a guy named Jason Carlucci bought it, tried to keep it going as it was, realized it was awful, burned the menus and started over.

The Dew Drop has a menu full of perfectly normal pub food. And I’m sure it’s fine – very good, even – but that’s not why I came to this place three times in 2023-24 to eat. I came here for wacky wing flavors. Nine different wing orders plus a baseline buffalo hot order to fairly judge Dew Drop against the other wing kings of Connecticut.

“Nine wacky flavors? How can a little neighborhood pub have that many wacky wing flavors?”

Clearly you are unfamiliar with the Dew Drop Inn. They have over 120 wing flavors, a number that grows every year. I’d guess there are infinite flavors and flavor combinations, so who knows where they’ll be at by the time you’re reading this.

The Dew Drop’s wings are “always fresh, never frozen!” and “Cooked to crispy perfection!” The price for six ranges from 12 to 13 bucks. Their menu sections of wings range from “Basic” to “Basically Ridiculous.” I appreciate the self awareness.

To list all the flavors here would be silly. I did ask a few friends which seemed wackiest/stupidest to them. I also asked a friend in the business who was the one who suggested I start with a normal buffalo hot wing. My first order was fairly benign: Buffalo hot, imperial coffee stout (dry rub), and tikki masala peanut butter. There are half a dozen “Dessert Wings” which I’d have at some point, but not during my first visit.

I ordered each tin of six wings to go and made my way down to the Dew Drop. It truly is a neighborhood joint with very little parking. And it’s always packed. Like, packed. People were stuffed near the entrance waiting for a table. I made the mistake of thinking I’d sit at the bar and enjoy a beer. It was at that point I was told, fairly politely, that even the bar seats are reserved here. People were waiting for them. On a winter Wednesday night.

Oh. Wow. Okay Dew Drop, I see how you do. This is the norm here, no matter time of day, day of week, or month of year. Impressive.

Before we get going, I want to make it clear: I’m purposely choosing wings I’m very confident I won’t like. I fully recognize the idiocy of doing this. I recognize this is unfair to the Dew Drop, but at the same time, recognize these flavors are listed on their menu for human consumption. Okay, let’s do this!

The First Visit, February 2023

Baseline Wings: Buffalo Hot

I took my wings a very short way up the road to BAD SONS Beer Company and enjoyed them next to my own private fire pit. Kinda perfect in a way.

I’ll admit it. I came here with a pre-conceived notion that this whole thing was going to be stupid. You serve cucumber wasabi wings, you’re going to be stupid. But I did my best to remove that bias as I took my first bite which was…

Good! The sauce has a sweetness that I didn’t need in my hot wings, but it wasn’t too off-putting. It won’t come as a surprise to you that these were the winners on the night for me. Dew Drop’s wings aren’t the largest or the meatiest around, but I think that’s actually a good thing; people get multiple flavors of wings here and with six being the fewest you can order, you don’t really want 18 massive wings when you order three varieties. At least I don’t.

Buffalo hot: 4.5 out of 5 stars

I was off to a good start.

Imperial Coffee Stout Dry Rub Wings (1 out of 5 stars):

Well, it didn’t take long to get a stupid wing. These were stupid. Can a dry rub work on a little chicken wing? I suppose so, and the Dew Drop certainly thinks so. As of this writing, they have 12 dry rub wings on their menu: Taco, BBQ, Applewood Chipotle, Honey Habanero, Tikka Masala, Montreal, Lemon Pepper, Citrus BBQ, Cherry Chipotle, Candied Bacon Sriracha, Imperial Coffee Stout, and Pink Peppercorn Lemon Thyme.

I have the same questions How in the world are some of these dry rubs? I have no idea. For their sake, I hope many of these flavors work as a dry rub, because the ones I was eating certainly did not. These are simply plain fried chicken wings. Very crispy plain fried chicken wings. There was some brown powder on them, sure, but I have no clue what was remotely “stouty” about them at all. Total duds in the flavor department. These are the wings for the gluten free, no salt, no spice crowd.

Terrible.

Imperial Coffee Stout Dry Rub Wings: 1 out of 5 stars

Tikka Masala Peanut Butter

Okay, now we’re in deep. I love chicken tikka masala. So tikka masala wings should be pretty good – just an entirely different type of chicken of course. But why did they add peanut butter into the mix?

Yes, lots of southeast Asian cuisines have peanut sauces… Thai and Vietnamese spring to mind. This is my first Dew Drop wing that makes me think half of these flavors are just dreamt up by drunken fools at the bar and then the chefs try to do something with the idea. I actually saved these for later as I was full from my beer and the other 12 wings.

I never noticed the F on the white sauce that came with these wings. I simply opened and and went for it, and…

Can you guess what the F?

The F is Fluff as in marshmallow fluff. If I wasn’t fully immersed in Dew Drop wing culture, now I was. What a thoroughly disgusting idea this is. Except it’s not just an idea! It’s real! And I was eating it!

Once. The wings on their own – and I’m fine ignoring the “tikka” here is fairly nonsensical to Punjabi speakers, since most of us aren’t Punjabi speakers – are actually surprisingly good. Weird and confusing, but somehow their peanut butter sauce works with whatever masala spice mixture they use. But the Fluff? GTFluffOH with that. JFluffinC.

Tikka Masala Peanut Butter: 2.5 out of 5 Stars

Overall, not a bad first foray into the depths of Derby. I knew I would be upping the wackiness ante on subsequent visits, though, so the jury was still out.

The Second Visit, December 2023

For my second visit, I turned to a friend. A bon vivant. An epicure. A backyard pitmaster and world traveler. He had some suggestions… and offered his feelings about me for bringing the Dew Drop menu to his attention (he’s not from these parts):

Right back at you, bro. And wait… shouldn’t I be the one hating him? Pink peppercorn lemon curd? Chocolate habanero? Sigh.

The day came when I would have 90 minutes to kill in the Valley. Actually, that’s not entirely accurate, as I was above the Valley in Bethany. I ordered and made the rather bonkers drive from the top of Route 63 down to the Dew Drop Inn in Derby.

Bruschetta

The funny thing about these wings is that my gourmand friend was so stuck on them in particular.

Yes. Not only does he hate me, but I’m also a dipspit. Still, of all the ridiculousness on the menu, it was these particular wings that fired him up the most. But what’s interesting is that his comparison to the soft serve joint and his perception of what made a bruschetta wing stupid were both… completely accurate.

Here they are (and I should apologize to the Dew Drop for my pictures. Sorry. I had taken my take-out up to BAD SONS again, and the lighting inside isnt’ the best):

I’ve watched a couple YouTube videos about this place. And in them, their method of preparation is laid bare: “We don’t bread, we don’t batter, we just throw them right into the fryer.” Then, each naked wing is sauced and tossed in a bowl, dumped on a plate, and topped with whatever. It’s fast and efficient – which they need to be in their tiny kitchen that pumps out thousands of wings every week.

And, as you can imagine with “bruschetta wings,” this makes no sense whatsoever. What I wound up with was… fried chicken wings with a gross ranch(?) sauce. I ate all six, sure, because I love fried chicken. But here’s what my plate looked like when done:

Yes, of course I could have made more of an effort to eat those tomatoes and (what appeared to be chunks of raw) garlic, but.. how? I was sitting inside at the brewery’s bar and scooping up chopped veggies while eating wings was not something I felt like doing. This is just a dumb concept, but at least they were edible…

Bruschetta: 1.5 out of 5 stars

Pink Peppercorn Lemon Curd

Why?

When I ordered, the woman at the Dew Drop read back my choices and said, “Pink Peppercorn Lemon Thyme.” I should have taken that as a hint. A sign. Because that thyme has to be better than the curd. These were awful wings. A dreadful flavor combination – overpowering Lemonheads candy syrup on fried chicken. This is not “adventurous,” this is terrible.

The giant – and quite honestly pretty! – pink peppercorns were there for looks only. The lemon flavor so dominated that any pepperiness was non-existent on my palate. Furthermore, the lemon curd glaze is the consistency of rubber cement. So sticky and gluey and lemony and… does not belong on chicken. A better name for this flavor is lemon meringue pie wings.

I ate three and made the mistake of dipping one into the blue cheese. Lemon curd does not play well with blue cheese. In fact, it’s nauseating. I felt like a jerk throwing away the remaining three wings, but I am positive no one else at the brewery would want them. Starving people wouldn’t want these.

Coincidentally, The Dew Drop posted this on their Instagram the week I visited. I disagree with their contention there and notice that a year after posting that, there are zero comments.

Why are these on the menu? Because the owner considers them to be his favorite, as seen here.

Pink Peppercorn Lemon Curd: 0.5 out of 5 stars

But lo! It gets worse.

Chocolate Habanero

Remember, my “friend” suggested/challenged me with these three wing flavors. I honestly didn’t think too much of this one, figuring it would be like a mole sauce of sorts. Hey, Dew Drop… why not a mole sauce wing? That might actually work. Because this particular saucing does not. No one can eat these. No one enjoys these. At least in the manner they were prepared for me at 7:05 PM on Wednesday, December 20th, 2023. No. One.

What you see above is entirely too much cheap chocolate sauce covering up an absolute dredging of habanero powder with maybe some habanero or chili oil for good measure. I can handle hot sauce. I generally like hot things. Without a care in the world, I took a big ol’ bite of my first of these wings. The cloying chocolate sweetness hit me first (gross) and then the atomic bomb of the habanero knocked me off my stool.

It wasn’t a flavor, per se, it was just heat. No subtle pepper flavor, not interesting mix of hot and sweet and salty. No, just unadulterated unpleasant fire. Like a chemical fire in my mouth.

Go ahead and quote me on that, Dew Drop.

“Like a chemical fire in my mouth,” — CTMQ

Maybe the person who made my mix had a heavy hand. Maybe he was having a bad day. Maybe he’s a homicidal sociopath trying to kill his customers. Well, jokes on you, pal, because I only ate one and tossed the rest. What a waste.

Frankly, I’m not sure this flavor combination works at any heat level. The beauty of mole sauce is its complexity and the hours of preparation. This mess is just off-brand Hershey’s syrup and Restaurant Depot Habanero powder. Way too much of both. Yes, these wings are stupid, but so am I for ordering them.

Chocolate Habanero: 0 out of 5 stars

This project has to get better…

Reese’s Cup

I would have absoLUTEly predicted I’d hate these. But I swear to god, I liked them. A lot.

I didn’t eat them at BAD SONS with the others. I brought them home, put them in the fridge, and waited until lunch the next day. I did not heat them. I took this picture of them at my garbage cans, just knowing that’s where they would immediately go:

(It is where the Fluff immediately went.) Then I ate one and was immediately befuddled. How could I like these? There are literal chunks of Reese’s chocolate stuck to them. I just got through telling you the chocolate on the other wings was disgusting. Was it because they were cold? That must be it.

Or was it something else, explanation courtesy of the same “friend” who sent me on this torturous trip:

He’s a hilarious guy isn’t he? So hilarious.

But does he have a point? Was the previous evening’s trip to Stunt Flavor Hell affecting my good judgement?

I honestly don’t think so. I can’t explain it. I don’t even want to try to explain it. But I think this is the type of thing The Dew Drop banks on. Random mash-ups that are oftentimes borderline inedible, but then they hit on something weird and good and continue forth. But I’m curious… how were these when they were hot? I’ve only eaten three. I think I’ll heat one up and see how it is.

It’s… still good! What is wrong with me? I did like these cold better than hot, but either this experiment has totally broken my ability to taste or these aren’t bad at all. Or, now that I think about it, the chicken itself is completely ancillary to these wings and I was simply enjoying the chocolate and peanut butter? And all the chicken did was provide a slightly salty fried vehicle for the candy flavor? Yeah, that’s probably it.

But I’m still reeling over my feelings on a Reese’s Cup chicken wing. In fact, this flavor literally saved this whole experiment and convinced me to keep going.

Reese’s Cup: 4 out of 5 stars

I waited an entire year before returning to the Dew Drop. But return I did…

The Final Visit, December 2024

Haven’t I had enough? We all get the point, right? The Dew Drop Inn, multi-“Best Wings in Connecticut” award winners, make perfectly good wings with normal flavor combinations. But with over 120 flavors, many are just stupid. You don’t need to order the stupid ones. I had already ordered a bunch of the stupid ones. Why am I ordering more?

Because I set out to make three trips originally and I’m sticking to my plan. Now at least the Dew Drop knows I’ve dropped nearly $140 bucks into their coffers, so I’m sure they don’t care that I’ve suffered for my audience. Also, it’s important to note that not only are they super successful with their bar, pub menu, and wing business, I’ve heard from people I trust and respect that the owner is one of the kindest and most generous people in the Connecticut restaurant scene – and has been charitable without publicity, my favorite kind of charity. I hope he’s kind with me.

And I want to shout out BAD SONS Brewery again. All three Dew Drops were eaten here, and the beer was often the highlight.

Let’s go. My final tour of duty.

I had the strawberry balsamic on my list of dumb wings, but nah. Like, I know they must be terrible and I’d already had one fruit flavor. Plus, I watched some videos with the owner and he gave me some suggestions: the Dew Drop’s best selling wings (which can’t be stupid… right?) and what he deems the “wackiest.”

As I’ve mentioned several times on this page, I did some deep research. I watched a bunch of videos about this place and their wings. In so doing, I learned what their best selling wings were.

Now, I would think (hope?) their actual best selling wing flavor is Buffalo Hot. They are solid and would be a go-to of mine if I lived down here in the Valley. So I’m guessing the owner meant “best selling wacky wing flavor” when he said that the Bacon Parm Butter wings were their most purchased wings.

Semantics aside, I was happy to have my marching orders here: the same video where he said these were hot sellers, he also said what he considered the strangest flavor. Nice. My final order was two-thirds predetermined.

Bacon Parm Butter

I once again marveled at how packed The Dew Drop always seems to be. This last visit was a December Saturday at 2 PM. Good for them. And I once again took my bounty up to BAD SONS, which also had a nice crowd, and got to work.

Whomever put together my order was not shy with the bacon here. Holy cow… errr… holy pig! I just don’t understand the concept of Dew Drop Wing Solid Additions, however. They just fall off. All of them. And this wouldn’t be any different if I was served at a table at the Dew Drop. The walk to my car was 20 seconds, the drive to the brewery was one minute, and the walk to my table was another minute, tops. There’s just no way for bacon chunks to stick to chicken wings.

In other words, these concepts are all just kind of dumb from a practical eating standpoint.

I took a bite.

A’ight, a’ight, best seller they say. I took another bite.

I proceeded to take a lot of bites and took down these six wings in short order. These wings work. As always, the wings were not too tiny and not too meaty, and fried perfectly. But for once, the “wacky” flavors were all present and worked well together.

These are really, really good. Granted, I had a ton of bacon swimming in butter at the bottom of my tin when I was done with the wings, but I’ve just come to accept that that’s how it is with these things. For what it’s worth, flats work with these chunky ingredients way better than drums.

Bacon Parm Butter: 5 out of 5 stars

Would my luck continue?

Ranch BLT

Good Lord, no. Just no to everything here. Just look at this s#!+.

If you send that picture to 100 friends, not a one would correctly guess that these are chicken wings, let along “Ranch BLT” chicken wings.

Hell, I’m not sure half of them would even guess that it’s food.

This variety, out of the 120 or so that The Dew Drop makes, were said to be the “strangest” by the owner himself in a video I watched. In that video, linked below, they make these wings and serve them to two chefs who seem to love them on camera. And they’re on the menu, so someone likes them.

You need to really, really love ranch dressing. I do not love ranch dressing. As you can see above, these are drowned in ranch.

Here is what they look like plated for a camera:

I couldn’t eat them. The warm flaccid lettuce, the ranch, the ranch infused bacon, the mess. Just… no.

Look, in the video in the caption above, the owner guy even says, “we’re like mad scientists. We’ll come up with something or someone will suggest something and it’s weird but we try it and somehow sometimes it just works.” He knows his menu is ridiculous (heck, there’s a whole listing of wing varieties called “Basically Ridiculous” so I don’t want to besmirch the man or his highly successful pub.

But Ranch BLT wings should not be a thing. Into the trash they went. Please accept my $13.00 donation, Dew Drop.

Ranch BLT: 0 out of 5 stars

One last flavor. Let’s end this whole thing with a bang…

Black Forest

Traditionally, Black Forest cake has several layers of chocolate sponge cake sandwiched with whipped cream frosting and cherries. Typically, people decorate it with additional whipped cream, chocolate shavings, and fresh cherries. I don’t believe there’s a “traditional” chicken wing variant. In fact, I’m going to confidently say The Dew Drop Inn is the only place on the planet that makes and serves Black Forest Wings.

If you’ve read down to here, you’ve seen that I actually enjoyed the Reese’s Cup wings, so armed with that knowledge, I wasn’t as scared of these as I would have been without that prior experience.

These half dozen dessert wings (yeah, I’m actually used to the phrasing “dessert wings” now) sat in the fridge overnight and were reheated the next day, and…

I really like them. Again. And I was shocked. Again.

Maybe they’ve stepped up whatever chocolate saucing they use from that first visit’s Chocolate Habanero monstrosity. Because with these, it wasn’t syrupy sweet. Yes folks, I’m saying that a slightly bitter dark chocolate works better with chicken than sweeter milk chocolate. Again, I’m reminded of a good mole sauce, which is what this is akin to in a weird, bastardized, Americanized, shouldn’t work at all but somehow does way.

The cherries added a nice subtle sweetness and the salty fried wings completed the suite of flavor profiles.

Do I have Dew Drop’s version of Stockholm Syndrome as my friend suggested after my second visit? Am I just willing these things to be good? I don’t think so. The base wings here are always good, and there are a billion flavors that sound interesting and are probably really pretty good.

Black Forest: 4 out of 5 stars

Conclusion

There are a billion flavors here and a lot of them sound like they’d be really pretty good. I’m the dope who purposely chose a bunch of horrible varieties. Why? I don’t know. I guess the idea was to entertain the few readers that will read this 4,000 treatise. I hope I did that.

I’m sure those of you who are Dew Drop fans are mad at me for not having perhaps their most famous wacky flavor: PB&J. And honestly, I don’t know why I didn’t. I think I planned to in the beginning, but over the course of the two years it just got lost to me. I’d guess they’re pretty good though, with that same salty, sweet thing going on. And like many of these, the chicken becomes ancillary to the flavors; it’s just a thing that exists to fill you up that holds all the sauces and… stuff.

But yeah, I would like to try Spicy Asian Glaze, Kick-Ass Bayou, and most of all Blue Cheesy: The wings have blue cheese on them and they give you buffalo dipping sauce. Okay, that sounds pretty dumb, but I’m curious if flipping the formula works or not.

There are many more I have no desire to see, let alone eat: Hot Oil, Cucumber Tomato Ranch, Caramel Soy, and Jalapeno Cream Cheese to name the four that jump out… jump out and into straight into the trash can.

The Dew Drop is my kind of bar. Total neighborhood joint, dark, and old school. The Naugatuck Valley has a few of these types of bars, and I appreciate them very much. My orders were always correct, cooked well, and always ready for me when I arrived. This is impressive in such a busy and chaotic environment, and I give them a ton of credit for that. It’s a happy place, serving groups of old drunks and happy families in matching North Face puffers all mixed together.

And I appreciate what they’ve done with their menu. It’s a thing – in fact, it’s such a thing that it now has a CTMQ page dedicated to it. And not many restaurants can claim that, even if I didn’t like everything I had. But again, that was by design.

For you people. Ya weirdos.

Dew Drop Inn
CTMQ’s Unique & Historic Restaurants & Food