The owner of a Laramie food truck was recognized recently as creating the best traditional buffalo wing sauce in the country in a national competition held at the home of the buffalo wing.
Trent Weitzel, the owner of “Double Dubs” food truck, which specializes in wings, won four awards at the Buffalo Wing Festival held in Buffalo, New York, over the Labor Day holiday.
“The big one is the traditional medium sauce category,” said Drew Cerza, the celebration’s founder who has earned the title ‘Wing King.’ “That was the original sauce created in 1964 at the Anchor Bar in Buffalo. (Double Dubs) won first place in that. That’s a really good one.”
Double Dubs also placed second for traditional barbecue sauce and third for extra hot traditional sauce and claimed the event’s “rookie of the year” title.
For Weitzel, the appearance at the festival was the result of several years of work and a good word from a former customer.
Weitzel, who started his food truck business about six years ago, had contacted Cerza for the past four to five years to see if he could get a spot among the restaurants competing at the festival.
“At the end of the day, he didn’t have anybody to vouch for me for how good the chicken wings were,” he said.
So Weitzel contacted an old customer — former University of Wyoming Quarterback Josh Allen, who is now the quarterback for the Buffalo Bills football team — to ask him to put in a good word for him.
“(Weitzel) called me this year and said ‘Before you give me a no, hear me out — have you ever heard of a guy named Josh Allen?’” Cerza said. “Five minutes later, don’t I get a call from Josh Allen. And Josh introduces himself and says ‘I’m Josh Allen and I just wanted to put a plug in for my boys out there from Wyoming.’”
As a result, Double Dubs is the first food truck company to have competed in the contest, Cerza said.
Cerza said the most impressive award for Double Dubs was the first place for best traditional medium buffalo sauce.
The sauce must be based on the original recipe created in Buffalo, which was a mixture of Frank’s Red Hot cayenne pepper sauce and butter, Cerza said.
The sauce was one of eight Weitzel took to Buffalo for the competition.“All of the sauces I’ve created and made are 100 percent one-offs,” he said. “The original recipes and everything.”
Weitzel’s path to glory in the wing set began more than 14 years ago, when he started cooking wings in his back yard. He then expanded to providing wings for backyard barbecues and football parties before opening up the Double Dubs food truck about six years ago.
“My specialty is the sauces I create,” he said. “I tell people I’m retired. I really don’t work. This is a lot of fun to me.”
