Barbecue: Mustard-Whiskey-Glazed Ham Recipe

By
Joshua Bousel
a photo of Joshua Bousel, a Contributing Writer at Serious Eats
Joshua Bousel
Joshua Bousel is a Serious Eats old-timer, having started sharing his passion for grilling and barbecue recipes on the site back in 2008. He continues to develop grilling and barbecue recipes on his own site, The Meatwave, out of his home base of Durham, North Carolina.
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Updated Aug. 09, 2018

Ham is a funny thing in my life. It was the food that I missed most when my parents decided to keep a kosher household when I was 5. After leaving home and its kosher ways behind, I have had no qualms with cooking massive amounts pork, but a whole ham has never graced my kitchen; I suspect there's a place in my subconscious that has kept this super-trafe on the outskirts.

I don't know what triggered the change, probably just getting into the holiday spirit, but last weekend I had a hankering for some ham, went to the grocery store and picked out a bone-in beauty. Even though it was precooked, I heated it up in my smoker, using a mix of oak and cherry wood, for five hours, slathering on a mustard-whiskey glaze in the last hour. Each piece of this ham was pure sweetness, with an added hint of smoke in the glazed ends, which took me back to a more pure time when I had no notions of ham being anything but delicious.

Smoked Mustard-Whiskey Glazed Ham

Adapted from The Virtual Weber Bullet.

Recipe Details

Barbecue: Mustard-Whiskey-Glazed Ham Recipe

Cook 5 hrs 45 mins
Total 5 hrs 45 mins

Ingredients

  • 1 ready-to-eat bone-in ham, around 10 pounds
  • 1 1/4 cups dark brown sugar, packed
  • 1/4 cup dijon mustard
  • 2 tablespoons Jack Daniels Whiskey
  • 1/4 teaspoon ground clove
  • 1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
  • 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
  • 1/8 teaspoon ground allspice

Directions

  1. Remove ham from packaging, wash, and pat dry with paper towels. Allow to come to room temperature while preparing the smoker.

  2. Fire up your smoker to 225°F. Add 4 to 5 medium chunks of smoke wood. When the smoker is at temperature and the wood is burning and producing smoke, place the ham in the smoker.

  3. While the ham is smoking, mix the rest of the ingredients into a thick paste in a medium bowl to form the glaze, set aside.

  4. Cook ham to desired temperature, about 4-5 hours for a ten-pound ham to reach 120 degrees. Brush on the glaze during the last hour of cooking. Remove from the smoker, slice, and serve.