Tim Tam Slam
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The Tim Tam Slam (or Tim Tam Straw or Tim Tam Bong) is the practice of drinking a beverage by sucking it through a Tim Tam, an Australian chocolate-covered biscuit, with both of the ends bitten off.[1]
[edit] Other biscuits and other countries
The Tim Tam Slam has spread from Australia to other countries with mixed success. The practice is hampered by lack of exact equivalents to the Tim Tam, requiring people to perform it with other biscuits. It is, however, carried out in exactly the same fashion in New Zealand, due to the wide-spread availability of the biscuits there. Although the Slam is not a widespread practice in Canada, Tim Tams are now imported by Loblaw, which is that country's largest retailer.
In an article in the The Oberlin Review, Cat Richert reports attempting the practice in the United States using Oreo cookies after returning from a trip to Tasmania, but without success.[2]
In the United Kingdom, many people have reported having found the Penguin biscuit "suitable for Slamming", albeit tricky, and with the recommendation to use a shorter length of biscuit and not to use one's hands to hold the biscuit but to simply hold it with one's mouth; the Rocky Bar an "excellent success", with the biscuit being lighter, and with the caramel centre adding "a soft chewy edge that was most agreeable", albeit with the same caveats as for the Penguin; the Kit Kat "fairly good", with the recommendation to snap the finger in half and use one half at a time for tea-sucking, as it yielded less mess; Twix, Time Out, Peppermint Crisp and Drifter "fingers" are also suitable. Tesco's Value brand chocolate covered biscuit bars also work very well.
On Australia Day in 2004, 200 people in a pub in Croydon, England, and reportedly 30,000 people throughout the United Kingdom as a whole, attempted to set a record for tea-sucking, using Tim Tams.[3]
Residents of the United States may find a feasible and readily-available alternative in Thin Mint Girl Scout cookies. Chocolate-covered Keebler Fudge Shoppe Fudge Sticks work as well. Arnott's Chocolate-covered Teddy Bear biscuits also work well. First nibble off an ear and the opposite foot.[citation needed] Arnott's Biscuits may be found in the US in Cost Plus World Market stores in Original, Caramel Chocolate and Double Dip Chocolate flavors, these are the same biscuits that are marketed as Tim tams in Australia.
[edit] History
The earliest known reference to a Tim Tam Slam was in the "Tim Tam Slam" song by the Melbourne band, [The Oxo Cubans], circa 1991. The song's writer, Mal Webb, also performs it solo and with other bands. Mal took the term "Tim Tam Slam" from his sister Mary's god-daughter, Vasiliki.
[edit] References
- ^ shotgunning a TimTam. Toxic Custard guide to Australia. Retrieved on April 30, 2007.
- ^ Cat Richert. "Adventures From a Land Under the Land Down Under", Oberlin Review, 2002-04-19.
- ^ "Tea-sucking record attempt", Croydon Guardian, 2004-01-30.
