This Iconic Omaha Steak Is Every Whiskey Lover’s Dream Dinner

There's less to Omaha's most famous steak than you might think. In fact, you probably have the secret ingredients at home right now.

Let me explain: The marquee menu item at The Drover, a half-century-old institution in Omaha, is the "whiskey steak." The grill pros there will soak any cut in what they describe as a "special marinade" made from "a combination of secret ingredients, including whiskey."

The Drover's whiskey steak isn't the only one in town, but it's recognized as the original. And while The Drover may not be the most famous steakhouse in a city full of them—though it feels that way when you're waiting two hours for a table during the College World Series—no other steak in Omaha comes marinated in as much lore.

"The way it's set up on the menu, and talked about around town, lends an air of mystery to it," says Sarah Baker Hansen, the former food critic at the Omaha World-Herald, who's currently writing a yearlong steakhouse series for the Flatwater Free Press called "Steak Town USA." “I’ve asked the owners about the recipe half a dozen times, and they won't tell me. It's a secret, and they guard it preciously." Ask people around Omaha about the marinade, and they might tell you they've picked up a puzzling sweetness, or an umami note they can't quite place.

Ready for the punchline?

Back in 2024, I really did make the mistake of showing up at The Drover during the College World Series, and I really did end up waiting for two hours at the bar. While there, I met a man who told me that he was a regular and a friend of the owners. He said he'd been at the restaurant's grand opening back in the '70s. We talked for a while. When I cautiously brought up the secret marinade, he laughed: "It's just whiskey and soy sauce."

He'd been hanging around the bar longer than I had at that point, and he wasn't feeling shy. He told me he used the marinade at home. At one point, he called the bartender over to back him up, and the bartender confirmed what he was saying—all of it. My new friend shook his head. "Well, what'd you expect from a bunch of kids in the '70s?”

That resonated with me. One of my rules of recipe development: "Secret" doesn't mean complicated. The people who come up with these recipes are usually busy restaurateurs, not food scientists titrating rare ingredients into test tubes. They use what they have on hand or can procure easily and cheaply—ingredients like whiskey and soy sauce.

And as it turns out, that simplicity is what makes this marinade great. Throw in garlic, Worcestershire sauce, brown sugar, and other ingredients from Omahans' pet theories, and you throw off the balance. There's a reason The Drover only dunks steaks in the marinade for 15 minutes—so its flavor doesn't overwhelm the flavor of Nebraska beef.

"Of all the cuts I've tried there, the bone-in ribeye is the one that makes the best whiskey steak,” Hansen says, and I agree. A beefy, well-marbled cut, it has plenty of buttery flavor on its own. The soy sauce and whiskey don't have to do any heavy lifting. Instead, the marinade acts like a discreet spritz of perfume, tenderizing the meat and enhancing what's already there. The umami in the soy sauce boosts the umami in the beef, while the whiskey draws out its sweetness and complements it with subtle, banana-like esters.

After multiple rounds of testing, it became clear not only that my friend at The Drover wasn't messing with me, but also that the best ratio of soy sauce to whiskey is a clean 50:50. Use too much soy, and the steak enters teriyaki territory. Too much whiskey, and the aftertaste is harsh and solvent-like. (Anyone who doubts the efficacy of a steak marinade should try leaving a ribeye in whiskey for 24 hours, like I did for one early test. Fully saturated and charred at the edges, it tasted like a tenderized whiskey barrel.) For a ribeye with extra umami and enough boozy flavor to deserve the name "whiskey steak," just use equal parts.

Before marinating, I set the steak up for success with a 24-hour dry brine (you can get away with 12) that seasons the interior with salt. Then, I extend The Drover's 15-minute marination period to 1 hour in the refrigerator, allowing enough flavor and aroma penetration that you don’t feel like you're wasting your whiskey. As Tim Chin wrote in this guide to marinating, most of that penetration is limited to a narrow band just beneath the surface, even in longer marinades, but that's the point. You want a juicy ribeye with a whiskey-perfumed crust, not a beef sponge full of soy and booze.

If you can't find a bone-in ribeye, use a boneless ribeye, or, for that matter, any other cut you like. As long as it's mostly covered when marinating, it'll work, though you may want to adjust cook time for much thicker or thinner steaks. For the whiskey, don't use anything fancy. The grill will burn off most of the delicate flavors and aromas that separate your Old Weller Antique from your Old Crow. For soy sauce, I recommend using a reduced-sodium version (the soy sauce here is mostly for flavor, not salt) that you might've seen in Omaha in the '70s, like Kikkoman. Don't overthink it.

Is this recipe exactly what they serve at The Drover? Who knows, but it's close enough for me. "If it's really a two-ingredient thing, I have to laugh—and I have to hand it to the owners,” Hansen says. "It would mean they've done a good job of keeping their secret, and a very good job of branding. Sometimes, the best things do turn out to be simple."