This is how I like to serve the traditional New Year’s feast, but it’s really kicked up a level. Every winter, I usually end up producing quite a bit of it. I wouldn’t have any leftovers if my buddies found out I was making this. Serve alongside cornbread. On occasion, I substitute hog jowl for bacon. It is just left in the pan while the Trinity (onion, celery, and bell pepper) is cooking after being thinly sliced and then chopped into little bits.
| Prep Time: | 20 mins |
| Cook Time: | 2 hrs |
| Additional Time: | 10 mins |
| Total Time: | 2 hrs 30 mins |
| Servings: | 20 |
| Yield: | 1 ham |
Ingredients
- 1 (5 pound) hickory smoked ham
- 40 whole cloves
- 2 cups Irish whiskey (such as Jameson®)
- ½ cup butter
- ½ cup brown sugar
- 2 tablespoons honey
Instructions
- Cut crosswise slashes vertically and horizontally on ham, cutting through fat but not into the meat. Implant whole cloves where slashes intersect as deep as you can.
- Preheat the oven to 300 degrees F (150 degrees C). Line a large, heavy baking sheet with aluminum foil.
- Heat a saucepan over medium heat and add whiskey. Cook until reduced by 1/3 to boil out some of the alcohol taste, 15 to 20 minutes. Reduce heat to medium-low and add butter; stir until melted, 2 to 3 minutes. Stir in brown sugar and honey until mixture has a sauce-like consistency, 10 to 15 minutes more.
- Baste ham with glaze and place onto the prepared pan. Cover entire pan with more foil.
- Bake in the preheated oven for 1 hour, basting every 15 minutes with glaze and fat drippings from the pan and recovering with foil afterwards. Remove foil and continue baking until an instant-read thermometer inserted into the center of the ham reads at least 145 degrees F (63 degrees C), about 30 minutes more, basting twice during this period.
- Remove ham from the oven and tent foil to let juices settle back into meat, about 10 minutes. Reserve pan drippings. Trim off fat and skin and slice; set on a serving tray. Serve with pan juices.
- Don’t use a honey, country, or uncured ham for this.
- If glaze is too thick, thin out with a mixture of water and whiskey.
Nutrition Facts
| Calories | 410 kcal |
| Carbohydrate | 8 g |
| Cholesterol | 76 mg |
| Dietary Fiber | 1 g |
| Protein | 21 g |
| Saturated Fat | 10 g |
| Sodium | 1497 mg |
| Sugars | 7 g |
| Fat | 26 g |
| Unsaturated Fat | 0 g |