A traditional Portuguese liqueur
Some flavours carry you home.
A recipe from the island of Madeira, handed down through generations and made to be shared slowly.
Discover the storyTim Tam Tum is more than a liqueur.
It is the way back to the heart of Madeira.
In every drop: full tables,voices overlapping,doors that never close.
A toast to Madeiran hospitalityand to the joy that holds us together.
Close your eyes. Sip slowly. Let it carry you.
Saudade
Saudade, shared.
Portuguese has a word no other language has ever managed to translate: saudade. It is more than longing.It is holding close what is far away: the remembrance of what was and the quiet hope that it may return, a sweet sadness that exists only because there was love. The land of your grandparents, the smell of a Sunday kitchen, the sea seen from high above.
Tim Tam Tum was born of that saudade: the wish to bring a taste of Madeira to your table, as whole as it lives in the memory of those who set sail.
‘No one who leaves the island ever leaves it entirely.’
The island
An island in the middle of the Atlantic.
Vine terraces hanging over the sea, laurel forests wrapped in mist, fishing villages painted in colour. For centuries Madeira was a port of call and a place of farewells. Those who left took their recipes with them. This is one of them.
What every drop keeps
Seven flavours for the journey home.
Black tea
The grandmothers' secret: a gentle bitterness that balances the sweetness.
Raisins
Grapes the sun saved for later.
Black Reine Claude plums
Dark fruit that lends body and a velvety depth.
Cinnamon
A memory of the routes that set sail across the Atlantic.
Vanilla
A sweetness in no hurry.
Sugar cane
It is there twice: in the cane spirit and in the sugar. The “white gold” that made Madeira a sweet island from the fifteenth century on.
Madeira wine
The soul of the island in every sip.
The ritual
Poured into a small glass. Shared without hurry.
After a meal, when no one wants to leave the table. When someone who lived far away comes home. When there is something to celebrate, or simply someone to talk to.
See the rituals
Three clinks of the glass,
and the family is whole again.
The label
Every detail tells part of the story.
- The cross the Portuguese caravels carried on their sails. Under it the first navigators reached Madeira in 1419, and with it the island's story began.
- Acanthus scrolls, the ornament of the Portuguese baroque: the same one carved into the gilded woodwork of the churches and framing the azulejo tiles. A pattern made to last, like the recipe.
- The year of the first batch. The recipe travelled scribbled on a scrap of paper, folded among the clothes of those who were leaving. In 1978 it became liqueur again, and it has never been lost since.
- “Essência e tradição da Madeira · A saudade em cada gota”: Madeira's essence and tradition, saudade in every drop. The family's promise, written on the ribbon: to keep the island's essence and pour it drop by drop. In Portuguese, because some words only fit in the language of home.
- For those who left and those who come back. On the inner map of everyone who emigrates, every heading points home.
TimTamTum
Three soft beats, like three small glasses meeting: the sound of a home when someone comes back. A bottle to open at your table, or to bring to someone waiting for you.
Only a few bottles per batch: we will keep yours.