On the rare occasion that we give a special tour at Nueske’s, almost invariably the favorite thing for our guests to observe is a skilled Nueske’s team member hand-glazing our spiral-sliced hams.  It involves a blow torch, our unique blend of honey and spices, and a fair amount of talent is needed to avoid scorching the glaze.  We’ve even had some Wisconsin celebrities (Stephanie Klett, Kyle Cherek) try their hand at glazing a Nueske’s ham, with varied results and tons of enthusiasm.

The honey-glazed spiral-sliced hams that we create are each carefully hand-trimmed before curing and then being hung in the Nueske family’s smokehouse, where the hams are slowly smoked over sweet, rich Wisconsin Applewood.   This gives each ham a deep, mellow flavor and, post-smoking, each ham is spiral-sliced.  If the ham has a bone, we can still spiral-slice it; we just carve down to and around the bone.  After spiral-slicing, one of our professional ham glazers (really!) coat each ham with our lightly sweet honey glaze mixture and then caramelize the glaze onto the surface of the ham by hand, sort of like how you would caramelize the top of crème brûlée but with a MUCH bigger torch… and we’re talking rich, savory ham instead of custard.

Without fail, our honey-glazed hams are a customer favorite, especially during the spring and winter holidays.  Available in boneless or bone-in varieties, people appreciate the ease of the fully cooked entrée that looks and tastes this impressive… all the prep that needs to be done is to simply warm our ham gently in the oven.   They look pretty impressive in the middle of a holiday table, too.