Our story
Around 1970, my family left Paul do Mar, a fishing village in Calheta on Madeira's west coast, squeezed between the cliffs and the sea.
They took what fit in a suitcase, and everything that fits in none: the accent, the songs, the way of setting a table. And the recipes, kept where nothing gets lost: in the memory of their hands.
Gonçalves e FamíliaAs we sign it on every label.
Far from the island, the family kept celebrating the way they always had in Paul do Mar: the long table, voices over voices and, at the end, the small glass of Tim Tam Tum someone poured with pride. As long as there was Tim Tam Tum on the table, Madeira was never quite so far away.
In the family kitchen
“A little more cinnamon.”
“Not yet, let it rest.”
The recipe was never fully written down. It passed from one generation to the next the way important things do: by watching, tasting, correcting.
That is how I learned it, in the kitchen, without hurry: beside whoever was making it, smelling the syrup before it was ready and waiting as long as it took. The measures were in the hands, not on paper.
One day I realised this recipe could not stay at home. I did not invent it; I inherited it. All I added was the decision to share it.
So I make it the way it has always been made: in small batches, with time and by hand. Each batch rests for as long as it needs, even if that means waiting: hurry was never part of the recipe.
Today Tim Tam Tum is bottled to share a piece of Madeira with those who have never been, and to give it back, for a moment, to those who miss it.
Every bottle carries what we learned in that kitchen: the family recipe, the time it needs and the habit of sharing it. The rest is up to whoever pours it.
Open a bottle, and whoever is far away feels at home.
The name
No one knows for sure where the name comes from.
To us it was always a sound before it was a word: glass meeting glass as the family raises a toast, in three beats, like someone keeping time.
The pour.
The small glasses fill and the conversation softens.
The toast.
Glass meets glass in the middle of the table and, for a moment, no one is missing.
The sharing.
What comes after: the old stories, and someone asking to stay a little longer.
Your bottle
We make it in small batches and give it the time the recipe asks for, so there are only a few bottles. Write to us and we will set one aside for you.
Before we raise a glass
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