Urbanus Magnus

In Italy, we hope to cut our costs down somewhat by cooking as many of our meals as possible. But, the availability of stove fuels is somewhat different that North America, meaning that choosing a stove is a little hard. White gas (camping fuel), and the standard EN417-threaded butane canisters so plentiful here are quite scant in most of Europe - Italy included. Across the pond, Campingaz' dominance in the market means that its own proprietary canisters are ubiquitous throughout much of the continent, to the chagrin of many tourists, who won't have much luck finding EN417 butane canisters for their stoves in all but the largest cities in Italy.* *Update: We have completed our tour of Italy, and in fact did not have too much difficulty locating the EN417-threaded canisters.  We purchased our refill at an odd little "Liquigas" shop in Siena, a chain which appears to be unique to Italy. There are more of these shops, and so our advice would be to start the search the...

Almost everybody is familiar with the venerable Coleman suitcase stoves and pressurized lanterns - both of which run on what is known in N. America as "white gasoline". White gas, camp fuel and naphta are all different names for the same fuel. It is essentially a more refined version of gasoline (petrol for those of you in the UK!), with fewer smelly, carcinogenic compounds like benzene, toluene and octane-boosters. These additives are good for cars, but can clog stove generators and jets as they form viscous gums, which is why the more refined white gas does without them. Unfortunately, the camp fuels sold at stores aren't cheap by any stretch of the imagination. Here, a 3.78L (1 US Gallon) can of the cheapest camp fuel fetches about $15.50. Well, what about regular gasoline then? It's relatively cheap, and readily available, but can clog stoves and burns with an odour. Following my grade 11 chemistry background, I decided to try making a "gasoline still"...