Five of Brisbane’s Best Christmas Hams

Christmas is a time to slow down and spend quality time with family and friends. But more importantly, Christmas is about ham. Lots and lots of ham. Ham for Christmas lunch. Ham for Christmas dinner. Ham and mustard sandwiches for a week after. Summer vacation fried eggs and ham. Needless to say, choosing a festive ham is high-stakes business.

Thankfully, a bunch of Brisbane butchers are selling fabulous locally sourced ham, so you can rest easy in your upcoming Christmas coma. Ready the carving knife – here are five rarefied local hams.

Chop Shop Butcher

Chop Shop sells award-winning smoked hams produced by The Aussie Smokehouse on the Sunshine Coast (so feel free to go direct if you live up that way).

Aussie Smokeh House uses Australian hams sourced from Sun Pork in Kingaroy, which has a strong focus on animal welfare and sustainable farming practices. The hams are traditionally cured and smoked using European beech wood and slow-cooked for 11 hours. The entire range is gluten- and preservative- free.

Chop Shop is located in the Wynnum Plaza and also has a huge selection of lamb, poultry and beef, if that’s more your thing. Orders can be collected in person or delivered.

Chop Shop Butcher’s hams start at $17 per kilo with 3.5-kilogram small hams, 5-kilogram half hams and 10-kilogram whole hams available. Phone your closest the store to order.

Pattemore’s Meats

This multi-award- winning Redlands butcher has a family history in the business that dates all the way back to the 1870s.

Pattemore’s Christmas hams are produced using pork sourced from Queensland’s Southern Downs and cured using a Pattemore family recipe refined over 20 years, before being slow-cooked and smoked for 12 hours on-site (with a touch of steam to retain moisture). There’s a whole-leg and a butt-end-leg option, the latter taking top honours at the 2018 Pork Mark National Bone-in Leg Ham awards and third place in the 2020 Australian Meat Industry Council’s Leg Ham on the Bone competition. Both are gluten-free.

Pattemore’s The whole-leg and butt-end-leg hams are available for pick-up only from Pattemore’s at Alexandra Hills Shopping Centre.

Pattemore’s Meats’ hams are $170 for a whole bone-in leg ham ($190 for gluten free) or $85 for a butt-end- leg or a gluten-free leg-end half ham. Half bone-in leg hams are $100. For more info, see here.

Meat at Billy’s

This Rosalie and AshgroveBrisbane butcher is enormously popular. This year, it's offering a 10-kilogram whole Christmas ham on the bone as well as a 5-kilogram half-leg. Meat at Billy's also has its own signature peach- and- mustard glaze available to add to your order.

Meat at Billy’s sources its free-range hams from Gilly’s Smallgoods in Clontarf, which is a member of Australian Pork Limited, the producer-owned organisation that supports and promotes the Australian pork industry – in short, you know it’s the real deal.

The half-leg hams are lightly cured and double wood-smoked for 12 hours, and are gluten- and allergen- free. Meat at Billy’s reckons a half Christmas ham will cater generously for between 15 and 20 people with leftovers. Easy-peasy.

You can pay upfront and place a click and& collect order online for the Ashgrove, Rosalie, and Windsor locations, or pick-up from Ashgrove and Rosalie and pay on collection. Delivery is available on the Sunday before Christmas Day. Details on how to order here.

Meat at Billy’s half Christmas hams are priced from $113.83 and range in weight between 4.5 -kilograms and 5.49 -kilograms. For more info, see here.

Andrews Indooroopilly

This popular family-owned butcher at Indooroopilly Shopping Centre sources all its meat from Pilton Valley, a Darling Downs APIQ-accredited pork producer established in 1940.

All of Andrews’s Christmas hams are cured using a 30-year-old family recipe and double-smoked onsite using German birch wood.

Andrews doesn’t offer delivery, but the upshot is that it will customise your order to your needs when you visit in person, charging a price per -kilo.

Andrews Indooroopilly prices its ham at $16.99 per kilo for bone-in hams and $25.99 per kilo for bone-out. For more info, visit their website.

The Butcher Co

Kane Lutter is a minor meaty celebrity in Kalbar and Boonah on the strength of the locally sourced beef, lamb and pork he sells at The Butcher Co.

Lutter’s double-smoked leg ham is one of his star attractions. Using pork sourced from 9Dorf Farms, a sustainable and ethically focused farm in the Lockyer Valley, each ham is individually prepared and cured in a three-step process that takes between 12 and 14 hours.

The Butcher Co’s hams are available for pre-order now from Scenic Rim Farm Boxes.

The Butcher Co’s Christmas hams start at $105 for a boneless half leg (minimum 2.8-kilograms) and top out at $200 for bone-in full leg (minimum 9-kilograms). For more info, see here.

This article was originally published on December 9, 2020. It has been updated to reflect new prices and availability.