Ham in Not Coke

In March, I shared my Ham in Coke recipe. This was how I have been making ham for most of the time I have been married. It's a great recipe except my family and I have been trying to give up soda and look at giving up all artificial stuff in our food. That created a slight dilemma when it came to cooking the ham I had set aside for a Sunday family dinner. Not one to really faulter in the face of a challenge, I figured it can't be too hard to replicate a soda-like beverage for boiling my ham. What we ended up with was the best ham I have ever made. My husband, who always says he doesn't like ham, said if I made it that way every time he'd be a fan. It was a really recipe and open to a lot of interpretation.

Ham in Not Coke:
1 family sized ham, bone-in
Water to cover ham
1 large onion or two small onions, sliced (I quartered the small onions)
1 cup sugar, brown sugar, honey, molasses, or combination of
1 TB vanilla
Place ham in large pot and cover with water. If ham is pre-cooked then mix "soda" to taste, if not place ham in water after seasoned. Add sugar and vanilla to water until it tastes similar to soda. Add onions. Bring to boil. Reduce heat and let simmer for a few hours (this really depends on how much time you have and what your plans our). I let mine simmer for nearly 4 hours.
Remove ham from stock and place on baking sheet. My ham had cooked so long that the fat was seperating from the meat. I scraped the fat off and returned it to the stock water. If your fat is not removed, score it to allow the glaze to penetrate.
Make glaze - 1/2 cup honey, 1 TB ground mustard, 1 teas Chinese Five Spice (or a combination of cinnamon, cloves, ginger, anise and allspice). Spoon glaze on ham. Set under preheated broiler until the glaze has carmelized (about 5 minutes or so).
Slice up and serve. Reserve the stock for beans (currently my husband has black beans boiling in the stock and keeps telling me they taste really good but I am at work while he's making the beans).