Yearning for Yocona Sauce?

Yocona Sauce on the shelf at Mississippi Madness on the Oxford Square. Photo courtesy of John Welty.

Pick up a jar, a spoon, and a steak

By Tad Wilkes, Nightlife & Lifestyles Editor

tad.wilkes@hottytoddy.com

Steak purists almost always scoff at the notion of drizzling sauce onto a nice cut of beef. That qualifier “almost always” exists only because of Yocona Sauce.

The Yocona River Inn may have been reduced to ash, and Yocona in Exile may also be long gone, but a collective craving still looms across Lafayette County like the ghost of Johnny Vaught. Luckily, one still still can buy Yocona Sauce by the jar and Yocona-fy steaks at home. The restaurants’ owner Paige Osborn still makes the sauce, and it’s available in Oxford shops including Mississippi Madness, LB’s Meat Market, and the Farmers Market store on Old Highway 7.

Ingredients include burgundy, molasses, balsamic vinegar, Lea & Perrins Worcestershire Sauce, black pepper, and kosher salt. To prepare, you heat the sauce and add butter.