The Tim Tam Slam
Wikipedia succinctly describes the Tim Tam Slam:
The Tim Tam Slam is the practice of drinking a hot beverage, e.g. hot chocolate, through a Tim Tam (a commercial biscuit).
Hey, coffee is a hot beverage!
Tim Tams are Australian, so I wasn’t sure I’d be able to find them. Thankfully, they seem to be as ubiquitous as Fosters’s, so I found them at a larger Canadian grocery store.
They had two kinds, regular and caramel, so obviously I got both. To prepare for the Tim Tam slam, you bite off opposite corners.
Then you dunk one end in the coffee and, quickly, clamp your mouth around other end and suck like you’ve never sucked before. The tricky part of this process—and probably the reason it’s called the Tim Tam Slam rather than the Tim Tam Leisurely Suckle—is that the whole thing immediately begins to disintegrate when the coffee hits it. You really only get one good suck in before it’s mush in your hands.
The caramel kind was harder to hoover through, but lasted a bit longer. Maybe a suck and a half. Plus the ribbon of caramel acts like a skeleton to keep the whole thing intact even after the slam, making it easier to eat.
So the whole experience doesn’t last long, but while it does, it is a sweet one. The coffee picks up chocolate and liquified biscuit as it travels, arriving in your mouth with burst of sugary goodness.
The rest of it often plops into the coffee unless you can catch it in time. This gives the coffee itself a very nice mocha flavour, and even the soggy bits at the bottom are not half bad. They can be spooned out for a tiramisu-type treat.
Just be sure to wash your hands before attempting this. You’re going to end up licking them, and you wouldn’t want them pre-flavoured with Cheeto dust and whatever other filth you usually have coating your grubby flesh mittens. Might wanna have a napkin nearby too. Especially if you plan on writing a blog post about it and don’t want your keyboard all sticky. Oops.
Anyway, I highly recommend this messy success. Tim Tams and coffee are a match made in Australia heaven.
Note: Sorry for the blurry pictures. I was forced to use my iPhone 3GS, since I can’t even afford an iPhone 4. Oh hey, look, you can buy merchandise over to the right there!
Putting Weird Things in Coffee 
You could try it with iced coffee instead… it might last longer.
As a brew crew member, I was wondering what you favorite brunch ideas are. I am thinking Valentines brunch, with of course all the best coffee-mate creamer flavors. What do you think?
I lent my friend a backpack for her trip to Australia, and she brought me back a pack of tim tams so that I could experience the tim tam slam. So good!
You have to freeze the timtams first 🙂 Warm timtams do melt. Colder ones last a few sips.
That would work too… timtams + iced coffee would work even better?
I’ve got some Tim Tams in the freezer and I’ll brew up some iced coffee tomorrow. Maybe that combo will allow for 3 or 4 sips. Thanks dudes.
Wow! A shame I don’t get those biscuits in my country. This looks really nice! Maybe I’ll try it if I can find a proper “Brazilian Tim Tam” replacement.
No, you had it right: “match made in Australia”. {Australia == heaven}
(We have a few more flavours available in Aus – dark choc is my fave. And for a while there, they were making chili chocolate tim tams. They weren’t very hot tho.)
that looks like poop
My friend brought these things back from Australia and they were ridiculously good. They need to sell them in the states. I had tried them with intelligentsia coffee so I highly recommend that.
They are available at Target and online.
the trick is not to suck so hard! you still get a good amount of delicious soggyness with regular sucking strength 🙂 but it wont completely turn to mush in your hands
You’re sucking too much liquid through! Just quickly suck a small amount through so that it all melts, but doesn’t disintegrate
The trick is to leave the Tim Tams in the refrigerator so they are nice and cold before you introduce the hot beverage. Double coat Tim Tams also last a bit longer warm as there is more chocolate to melt through. Finally, this is not meant to be a leisurely snack… you suck the beverage until you feel the liquid hit your mouth then upend the entire bikkie (Aussie slang for biscuit which is what we call “cookies” for the North Americans reading this) into your mouth in one giant messy bite. My American friends call this “Aussie crack” and I have had great success finding Tim Tams at Cost Plus World Market and, recently, Target!