As a former Garden & Gun food editor now living on the edge of the Plains, there’s a lot I miss about my time in Charleston, South Carolina. The fishing. The pitchers of rum and bourbon punch. The loquats and calamondin oranges that grew on the side of the road and in friends’ front yards, usually free for the taking. And maybe most of all, the grilled wings at Minero.
That’s not to write off the crab rice at Hannibal’s, the butter bean salad at Monza (RIP), or everything chef BJ Dennis did with okra. But every time I order wings, at bars and restaurants all over America, I wish they were the mole-spiced, ember-charred, Valentina-doused version that I ate almost weekly at the Southern-accented Mexican restaurant then on East Bay Street. I can’t say I miss any other taste of Charleston quite like that.
I tried to figure out the recipe before I left town, but there was a time when it seemed as closely guarded as Coca-Cola’s. I talked to Minero employees who swore they didn’t know the secrets, as they had to tell pushy friends like me over and over again. Not long ago, an ex-manager who’s also now living in the Midwest told me that she was still trying to crack “that special wing rub” herself.
Over the years I’ve gotten the sense that there are many other ex-Charlestonians who still salivate like a Pavlov-trained Boykin spaniel when they think back to the aromas of cumin and hot sauce wafting off crisp-skinned grilled chicken. Every time I post a photo from one of the restaurant’s two remaining locations, at Ponce City Market in Atlanta and on Johns Island, South Carolina, they’re in my DMs.
So I decided to use my food writing powers for good, and I reached out to Minero to ask if they’d throw us hungry masses a bone. I expected a polite no. Days later, the secret recipe appeared in my inbox.
It starts with a couple of commonsense tricks: A wet brine and two-stage grilling method work together for tender, juicy, deeply seasoned meat and crisp skin. But the real secret is the seasoning, a mix of brown sugar, warming spices, and ground sesame seeds and pepitas. It’s like a Mexican mole reimagined as a Memphis-style barbecue rub.
“Right off the grill, you get this sweet-and-savory, nutty smell,” says Tyler McCarron, executive chef at the Minero on Johns Island. “You’re like, ‘Oh yeah, this is what people love so much.’ They don’t necessarily know what it is, but they know they want it.”
Now there’s one less taste of Charleston that I can only have on vacation, and it doesn’t call for fresh catch or esoteric citrus. To conjure up the Holy City in my Kansas City backyard this summer, all I need is a deli container full of homemade Minero wing rub, a bottle of Valentina, and a hot bed of coals in my kettle grill.
