Sterno is abrand ofjellieddenatured alcohol sold in and meant to be burned directly in its can. Popular both in commercial food service and home entertainment, its primary uses are as afuel for heatingchafing dishes inbuffets and servingfondue. Other uses are forportable stoves and as an emergency heat source. It is also used with toy and model steam and otherexternal combustion engines.
The flame is typically lit with amatch orlighter and extinguished by placing the lid over the can to starve it of air, though any noncombustible cover will do.
The Sterno brand and trademark is owned by Sterno Products, a portfolio company of Westar Capital LLC, based inCorona, California.[1] The brand was purchased fromBlyth, Inc. in late 2012.[2] Blyth had acquired the business fromColgate-Palmolive in 1997.[3]
The name comes from that of the original manufacturer, S. Sternau & Co. ofBrooklyn, New York, a maker ofchafing dishes,coffee percolators and similar appliances since 1893. It had previously applied the name to its "Sterno-Inferno" alcohol burner. In 1918, it promoted its Sterno Stove as being a perfect gift for a soldier going overseas.[4] In his bookWith the Old Breed,E. B. Sledge describes its use on the battlefields of thePacific Theatre in 1944 and 1945.
Discovered around 1900 as a byproduct of thenitrocellulose manufacturing process,[citation needed] Sterno is made fromethanoldenatured by addingmethanol, water, and anamphoteric oxidegelling agent, plus, in recent decades, a safety dye that gives it a characteristic pink color. The methanol is added to denature the product, which is intended to make it too toxic for consumption. Designed to be odorless, a 7-ounce (200 g) can will burn for up to two hours.[5]
Sterno contains methyl alcohol which makes it poisonous. In spite of this there are many instances of people drinking Sterno to become intoxicated as a form ofsurrogate alcohol.
Moreover, the methanol can cause permanent blindness by destruction of theoptic nerves. BluesmanTommy Johnson alludes to the practice in his song "Canned Heat Blues" recorded in 1928.[6] (The blues bandCanned Heat derived their name from the song.)
The practice is said to have become popular duringProhibition[7] and during theGreat Depression inhobo camps, or "jungles", when the Sterno would be squeezed throughcheesecloth or asock and the resulting liquid mixed with fruitjuice to make "jungle juice", "sock wine", or "squeeze".[8]
The 1956 American documentaryOn the Bowery includes footage of three homeless men straining Sterno cooking fuel to make "squeeze" and then drinking the alcohol.[9]
In an article for theJournal of the American Medical Association in 1961, Capt. James H. Shinaberger, MC, writes about a study of three people who had suffered methanol poisoning as a result of drinking Sterno. One of the patients "had been drinking Sterno for about a week and had been in the city prison for 48 hours when severe abdominal pain and vomiting occurred".[10]
In December 1963, a rash of 31 deaths inPhiladelphia's homeless population was traced to a local store that knowingly sold Sterno to people for them to consume and get drunk.[11]