“Drink the best and burn the rest” has been the unofficial motto of the ethanol industry – but you can literally do that when you grill with the FlameDisk® charcoal alternative.

According to their promotional material, “the FlameDisk® is much more eco-friendly than charcoal and lighter fluid because it features renewable ethanol. Ethanol is extremely clean burning and generates 90% fewer pollutants than charcoal. The FlameDisk®’s aluminum casing is also recyclable.”

When they sent me an email asking if I wanted to do an interview, I had to take them up on it – since their hook is that “each FlameDisk utilizes one pint of ethanol that comes from corn grown locally in the Midwest.” Gotta love that. The interview couldn’t be set up until Monday afternoon, but in the meantime they sent us a couple of the FlameDisks to try out ourselves. Since Chuck loves to grill, we did our own demo over the weekend and found it worked pretty well. It looks kind of like a Jiffy Pop popcorn tin, but it lights easy, heats up fast, it’s convenient, – and it’s new use for corn ethanol. What’s not to like? Not to mention that it’s commercially available at places like Ace Hardware, Home Depot, and True Value with a suggested retail price of $4.99.

Anyway, here is our little video demo of the FlameDisk ethanol-powered charcoal alternative. Enjoy!