Top 10 Best-Selling Marinades & Dressings for 2013

Well-made, high-quality marinades, dressings, cooking sauces and other specialty sauces like steak or brisket sauces are a convenient way to add gourmet or home-made flavor to meals with little effort or expense. The Carolina Sauce Company offers a wide variety of such sauces, dressings and marinades, all at reasonable prices and in a range of heat levels and array of American and international flavors. The following list has the top ten best-selling marinades, dressings and specialty sauces for 2013:

1. Walkerswood Spicy Jamaican Jerk Marinade is one of Jamaica's most famous exports. This authentic jerk marinade complements and tenderizes all types of red meats and poultry, infusing them with the zesty, exotic and spicy flavors of Jamaica. You can also use it to marinate fish, shellfish and vegetables prior to cooking or grilling. For red meat and poultry, marinate in your refrigerator for several hours or overnight. For seafood and vegetables, up to an hour of refrigerated marinating will suffice.

2. Busha Browne's Spicy Hot Pepper Sherry is an old-fashioned concoction of real sherry in which chili peppers have been steeped to infuse the sherry with peppery heat. This pepper sherry is perfect for making Bull Shots (a hot and boozy beef bouillon drink that will warm you up on winter evening), Bloody Marys and other savory cocktails, or for adding depth to soups, stews, marinades for meats, homemade brown sauces and more.

3. Ole Ray's Blackberry Wine Cooking Sauce is a magnificently mouthwatering gourmet sauce that is sure to impress family and guests, and have them wondering when you found the time to attend culinary school. Wonderful with all sorts of beef and pork cuts, it's also a natural with venison, wild boar, game birds and the like. Delightful as a rib glaze when applied during the final few minutes of smoking or grilling, you can also marinate, grill, baste and sauce with it in the kitchen, at the grill and at the table sauce.

4. Walkerswood One Stop Savory Sauce is like a traditional American steak sauce, but with a refreshingly different, spicy, lightly fruity tropical twist. Bananas and mangoes team up with the usual raisins to add body and brightness, while nutmeg, thyme and Jamaican allspice pair up with tamarind, scallions and other similar ingredients regularly found in steak sauce. The result is a deep, multidimensional and appealingly complex richness that complements steaks, roasts, pork loin, beef brisket, rotisserie chicken, venison tenderloin and other hearty fare as well a breakfast favorites like eggs, potatoes and sausage.

5. Bone Suckin' Yaki Sauce is a North Carolina original that blends Asian teriyaki sauce with tangy tomato-vinegar barbecue sauce for a fantastic fusion of flavors that brings out the best in anything you marinate, baste, grill or cook in it. It's finger-lickin' good on chicken, ribs, shrimp and veggies, and you can use it for stir-fry dishes, as a steak sauce, in ground beef dishes or burgers, and more. Your imagination is the only limit!

6. Ole Ray's Steak & Brisket Sauce delivers the flavors of Texas barbecue to your table whenever you're craving them. Although it was created specifically to complement and enhance the flavor of slow-smoked beef brisket, this sauce is also excellent with London broil, pot roast, pork loin, venison, and other similar red meats. You can even dress up your burgers or meatloaf with it, or dip your french fries and other finger food in it instead of ketchup.

7. Tobago Keys Peruvian Gold Grilling Sauce is a sweet and sassy mustard sauce with tropical hot peppers and savory spices for a rich Caribbean flavor that will enhance everything from pork and beef to chicken, seafood, vegetables and even rice & beans. You can marinate with it, bake and broil with it, splash it on sauteed or grilled veggies, brush on kabobs or ribs during the last few minutes of grilling, and play with it in the kitchen, too.

8. Jim Beam Kentucky Bourbon Original Steak Sauce is a classic American steakhouse style sauce that's spiked with a healthy splash of real Jim Beam bourbon whiskey from Kentucky. The bourbon adds deep notes of caramel and wood for a rich roundness of bold yet mellow flavor that brings out the best in any type of steak, from the most expensive cuts to the most affordable. Turn an ordinary hamburger into a $12 steakburger simply by dressing it up with this gourmet condiment. Or add it to ground beef recipes including meatloaf, sloppy joes, sliders, and more.

9. Pickapeppa Brown Sauce is another traditional Caribbean brown sauce like our fourth-place sauce, but with a little more tang, a little less heat, and greater depth of deep, dark, savory flavors. Mangoes add a hint of subtle tropical flavor for a subdued exotic elegance that will impress even the most discerning, well-traveled palates while also pleasing simpler tastes and youthful palates. Enjoy it the same way you'd use any other steak sauce or meat condiment, as well as in place of ketchup for dipping onion rings or fries or dressing up burgers or scrambled eggs.

10. Tobago Keys Coral Ridge Seafood Sauce is a zesty tropical alternative to tartar sauce for fish, shrimp and other seafood. Creamy but not heavy, with a good amount of habanero heat without being overpoweringly hot, and pleasingly tangy-savory but not tart, this mayonnaise-based sauce is wonderful with seafood prepared any way: breaded and fried, broiled, sauteed, baked, grilled, poached, etc. Try it on fish tacos, on salmon burgers or stirred into tuna salad and other mayo-based salads for a delightful change of pace!

Zestfully yours,
Gloria