Sterno

Popular both in commercial food service and home entertainment, its primary uses are as a fuel for heating chafing dishes in buffets and serving fondue.

The flame is typically lit with a match or lighter and extinguished by placing the lid over the can to starve it of air, though any noncombustible cover will do.

Discovered around 1900 as a byproduct of the nitrocellulose manufacturing process,[citation needed] Sterno is made from ethanol denatured by adding methanol, water, and an amphoteric oxide gelling agent, plus, in recent decades, a safety dye that gives it a characteristic pink color.

[8] The 1956 American documentary On the Bowery includes footage of three homeless men straining Sterno cooking fuel to make "squeeze" and then drinking the alcohol.

[10] In December 1963, a rash of 31 deaths in Philadelphia's homeless population was traced to a local store that knowingly sold Sterno to people for them to consume and get drunk.