Preheat the oven to 200°C/392°F (conventional).

Half fill a medium sized saucepan with water and bring to a boil. Lower the apricots into the water carefully with a pasta scoop and boil for 1 minute. Transfer to a bowl of icy water. Depending on the size of your pot, you may need to do this in 2-3 separate batches. Use a sharp knife to carefully peel back the skin from the apricots. Cut up the apricots roughly to remove the seeds and discard of the seeds.

Transfer the peeled and roughly chopped apricots to a saucepan along with the whiskey, maple syrup, brown sugar, cinnamon and star anise. Turn to a medium heat and simmer for 25 minutes or until the apricots have broken down and apricot glaze has thickened, stirring throughout to help break up the apricots. Discard of the cinnamon quill and star anise.

While the glaze simmers, prepare the ham leg. Use a sharp knife slice just above the ham hock and along the edges of the rind between the rind and the fat, leaving as much fat on the ham as possible. Use your hands to carefully peel back the rind, running your fingers between the rind and the fat. Discard of the rind. Slice the fat in lines about 1cm apart across the whole surface of the ham. Insert a clove into each diamond. Lay a piece of baking paper over a piece of aluminium foil the same size. Wrap the foil and baking paper around the ham hock with the baking paper side between the ham and the foil. Place the ham onto a wire rack placed inside a roasting pan.

Brush half of the glaze onto the ham and reserve the remaining half of the glaze. Place the ham into the preheated oven and bake for 20 minutes. At 20 minutes brush more glaze onto the ham and return to the oven for another 20 minutes. Repeat this process with the remaining glaze and return to the oven for another 20 minutes, so that the ham cooks for a total of 1 hour.

Remove the ham from the oven. To serve, remove the foil from the ham hock and replace with a piece of cloth, fixed in place by tying a decorative ribbon or cooking twine around the cloth. Decorate with the rosemary sprigs if desired. Serve hot or cold.