BFZ PRODUCT REVIEW- Hot Wing Jerky and Ovaltine

I was in the check out aisle at Walmart behind an Asian couple and a mother with three busy/grabby children. I had substantially fewer purchases to make than either of them whose carts were heaped to the gunwales like American cornucopias. The woman took in my few paltry items and magnanimously offered to let me go ahead of her. If it had been the Asian couple I may have agreed, but I too have proceeded through the check out while simultaneously trying to police young ones so I declined. "I'm all by myself and I'm in no hurry," I said nodding toward the youngest of her children who was intent on studying the various candies which some fiendishly efficient marketing executive had ordered placed at an infant's eye level. Have you ever wondered why the candies in the check out aisle are so low to the floor? That's why. For parents of small children the check out aisle is like running the gauntlet.  While I was waiting my eyes took in the headlines on the magazines. Kim Kardashian and Kanye West were pregnant and so too were William and Kate. Apparently there was little else going on in the world.

Then my eyes beheld Jack Link's Buffalo Wings Big Dippers. I stared in wonder at this product, which was new to me. "Brilliant," I thought. I went to college in western New York just an hour south of Buffalo, and let me tell you, Western New York is basically a wings-based economy. In fact, I even went to a Chinese restaurant once in Olean, NY where Buffalo hot wings were on the menu. My four years spent living in Western New York left me with a deep and enduring love of hot wings.

Although I have to give Jack Links credit for trying to distill the Hot Wings experience into a pre-packaged jerky complete with hot sauce and ranch the end result was terribly disappointing.

In my experience hot wings succeed or fail based largely on the sauce. The sauce was simply horrible. it tasted like Italian dressing mixed with tabasco sauce. McDonald's wings sauce is one-hundred times better. Still I have to give them credit for trying. It's a great concept, but, seriously, back to the drawing board.

I have recently made the difficult decision to give up drinking soda, even my beloved diet pepsi, and guess what has stepped into the breach to fill this refreshment vacuum- Ovaltine! (It also apparently serves well as a hot wings jerky chaser.)

Simply put, ovaltine is my new favorite drink. I hadn't drank ovaltine since I was a child, but it was like being reunited with an old friend. I recommend that you purchase yourself some ovaltine and milk at the earliest opportunity. You will thank me!