A good marinade does two jobs. It seasons the meat all the way through, and it sets up the kind of char and caramelization you only get over high heat. Most people overthink the first job and skip the second. The truth is you don't need a long ingredient list to do both well. You need salt, a little sugar, some acid, and flavor with depth.

That last part is where most grocery-store marinades fall short, and it's where our two flagship sauces earn their spot on the shelf. Kentuckyaki and Bluegrass Soy Sauce were both built on the same foundation: soy sauce naturally brewed and aged in bourbon barrels right here in Louisville. They bring umami, salt, and a low oak note that a bottle of teriyaki off the shelf simply doesn't have. Below is how we put them to work all summer long.

Start With What Each Sauce Does Best

The two sauces have unique flavors and uses in the kitchen, so it helps to know which one to grab.

Kentuckyaki is our Kentucky-style teriyaki. We take classic teriyaki and build it on our barrel-aged soy sauce, then sweeten it with Kentucky sorghum and round it out with fresh garlic, fresh ginger, and a splash of Kentucky bourbon. It's rich, garlicky, a little sweet, and ready to use straight from the bottle. Because the sugar is already in there, it's a marinade and a glaze in one, which makes it the easiest place to start.

Bluegrass Soy Sauce is the blank canvas. Meaty, brothy, and briny, it's the salt-and-umami backbone you build a marinade around. You control the sweetness, the acid, and the heat, which makes it the right pick when you want to steer the flavor somewhere specific. Think of Kentuckyaki as the finished idea and Bluegrass as the starting point.

The Five-Minute Kentuckyaki Marinade

This is the one to reach for on a weeknight when you got home late and people are hungry.

Pour enough Kentuckyaki over your protein to coat it, turn it a couple of times, and let it sit while the grill heats up. Fifteen minutes gets you somewhere. An hour does more. That's the entire process. The sorghum and bourbon give you a glaze that caramelizes fast over the fire, so keep an eye on it and don't walk away.

It shines on salmon, chicken thighs, and beef, and it's just as good on a tray of vegetables or mushrooms for the grill. Brush a little extra on in the last minute of cooking, and you get a sticky, lacquered finish. Anything left in the bottle doubles as a dipping sauce at the table.

The Build-Your-Own Bluegrass Marinade

When you want to set the direction yourself, start with Bluegrass Soy Sauce and a simple ratio: roughly three parts soy sauce, two parts oil, one part acid, plus whatever aromatics you've got. From there, it's all dials you can turn.

For a classic savory marinade, whisk in a little brown sugar or sorghum, grated garlic and ginger, and a squeeze of citrus or a splash of rice vinegar. Want heat? Add chili flakes or a spoonful of chili paste. Want it brighter? Lean on the citrus. This works beautifully on flank steak, pork, chicken, and firm fish, and it's the move when you're feeding a crowd and want everything pulling in the same flavor direction.

A short marinade, thirty minutes to a few hours, is plenty for most cuts. With fish, keep it on the shorter end so the salt doesn't start to cure it.

Don't Forget the Finish

Marinades season the inside. The outside is where a little extra seasoning right before the meat hits the grate pays off.

A pinch of Bourbon Smoked Sea Salt or a few cracks of Bourbon Smoked Pepper over a piece of marinated meat builds a second layer of flavor and helps the crust along. The smoke in the seasoning and the oak in the sauce come from the same place, so they read as one idea on the plate rather than two competing ones.

A Few Rules That Make Everything Better

Pat your protein dry before it goes on the grill, even after marinating. A wet surface steams instead of searing. Let the grill get properly hot before anything touches it. And if your marinade has sugar in it, like Kentuckyaki does, watch for flare-ups and be ready to move things to a cooler part of the grate so the glaze sets instead of scorching.

None of this is complicated. That's sort of the point. Give a good sauce a hot grill and a little attention, and Kentucky summer cooking mostly takes care of itself.

Ready to stock up before the weekend? Grab a bottle of Kentuckyaki, a bottle of Bluegrass Soy Sauce, or browse all of our barrel-aged sauces and build your summer arsenal.