Buffalo's 'original' wing sauce is now available in bottles

BUFFALO, N.Y. (WIVB) — You can now get a taste of a long-overlooked piece of Western New York's culinary history. Buffalo's "original" wing sauce has been bottled for the first time.

Lina Brown Young and local business owner Marc Moscato on Saturday launched John Young's Original Mumbo Sauce, a line of bottled sauce bearing the recipe of John Young, the late proprietor of the soul food restaurant John Young's Wings and Things, who is credited by many for introducing chicken wings to Buffalo.

While Anchor Bar founders Frank and Teressa Bellissimo have long been recognized as the inventors of the Buffalo-style chicken wing — cut into two pieces, deep fried, tossed in butter and hot sauce and served with celery and blue cheese dressing — in 1964, Young began serving golden-fried wings smothered in his tomato-based Mumbo Sauce at his Jefferson Avenue eatery in 1961.

His recipe was unavailable for over two decades until Brown Young, his daughter, reintroduced the city to the work of its original "King of Wings" through regular pop-ups at the Broadway Market and a stop on Moscato's chicken wing bike tour. Now, the two entrepreneurs have teamed up to continue John Young's legacy by bottling and selling the historic recipe.

"I think what makes my dad's sauce special is the fact that it has fruits in it," Brown Young said. "So it's a tomato-based sauce. There are some seasonings in it, but I think what makes it unique is the fact that he added certain fruits. So it's like a sweet, tangy sauce. Very delicious."

Brown Young said that she wants everyone to be able to try her father's unique sauce, on anything from wings to sloppy joes to french fries.

John Young's Original Mumbo Sauce is available online and will also be sold at the Broadway Market, Eugene V. Debs Hall, Mandella Market on E Ferry Street and the Michigan Street African American Heritage Corridor.