Story by Tracy Record
Photos by Torin Record-Sand
For West Seattle Blog

The hottest party in West Seattle on Saturday night was tongue-burning, eye-watering hot.

It filled a paint shop in The Triangle with more than 100 people there to dare – they dared to try making it through 10 hot wings, progressing up the heat scale.

The invite-only gathering was “Hot Ones 10,” inspired by and named after a YouTube series.

This was the 10th annual version of what began as a gathering of friends in a back yard and has expanded exponentially to the size of last night’s party: ~500+ wings, donated by a local meat processor, with a nominal entry fee that added up to a donation of more than $400 for Unified Sports via the West Seattle Booster Club.

(L-R, Eric Tirnauer, Steve Cole, Sean Cummings, Paul Morton)

Party host was Sean Cummings, proprietor of All-Pro Painting, who noted that he and his friends’ kids are now teenagers and they bring the fire, so to speak. The party started two hours before the wings, which were prepared by Claiborne Bell and team at nearby Distinguished Foods Kitchens. Live music shook the shop courtesy of Ruston Rock – “my mom’s kick-ass cover band,” as Sean explained it.

(Mom’s the drummer.)

Videos of highlights from past Hot Ones looped on screens, while some wing-awaiters played foosball, ping-pong, and hoops – warming up for the hot stuff.

For a while, what was to come was only hinted at with bottles of milk and even hot-pink Pepto-Bismol strategically placed.

As the wings’ arrival neared, the room was reconfigured with two long tables for participants. Emcee Steve Cole, wearing a suit the color of most hot sauces, barked out the rules (most notably “you only have to take one bite” to survive a round of wings).

They took a count of who was in it for wings (including three vegetarians). The sauces were announced as the wings were distributed:

Advice was offered too – “try not to touch your eyes.” (Many pulled on gloves to avoid skin contact too.) Once everyone had their wing for the round, the countdown to eating it was “THREE, TWO, ONE, BURN!”

Three rounds in, no one looked too miserable, yet. This was truly a “for the fun of it” faceoff, though, as the only real prizes were beads, different collors depending on how far you made it.

As things got spicier, there was definitely capsaicin in the air.

(Even on the sidelines, your correspondent’s nose tickled.) After round #5, someone requested ice cream to calm their mouth, eliciting a round of good-natured boos. For round #6, emcee Steve announced it as “the real deal,” with a habanero-based sauce. But it took up to round #8 before a yelp or two was heard from somewhere in the crowd. “That one escalated quickly,” a wing-eater observed. Fist-bumping and milk-guzzling ensued.

This was not a “last person standing” type of event; we couldn’t stay all the way to the end of the wings, leaving after observing through round 8, but Sean tells us “about 80 percent” of the participants endured them all. He also tells us they ended up with a 150-wing surplus, so those were re-donated, to nearby Westside Neighbors Shelter.