Other than some kind of twisted hazing ritual, I have difficulty imagining the line of thinking that would lead someone to want to consume it unmixed.

Well, it's not always entirely unmixed. For example, I like my tequila shots with a bit of Tabasco sauce. Tastes like curry.

And it's not hazing (well, it's not always hazing), so much as it what we might call a community-building experience. You and your friends get your shots together, down them together, and then grouse—together—about how you really should have sprung for the good stuff and why didn't you stop drinking this shit in high school? Then the warm fuzzies set in, and more shots are poured.

At some point, tradition dictates that you will pass out in an extremely uncomfortable position, generally on top of or near a pile of (living) bodies. This may or may not occur after an unwise sexual experience with one or more of your friends, which was probably life-changing and incredible, if only you could remember it. In the morning, there are eggs.

Diameter is indeed the key. The size of the central hole has a strong impact on the burn speed (a larger hole yields faster fuel consumption and more heat output per unit of time); drawing around a US quarter gives you a good basic simmer. Put the ring of small holes about an eighth of an inch out from the edge of the central hole (yes, this means they will be on the inner, concave portion of the can bottom), and the wall that separates the central ignition chamber from the outer evaporation chamber goes between the central hole and the ring of small holes. With the quarter-sized central hole you want a ring of about eight pushpin holes. The tricky part is getting the height of the separating wall right, but if you make it too tall you can measure how much you're off by on the outer edge of the partially-assembled stove (the top and bottom halves won't go all the way together), push it apart, trim, and reassemble. (I used a wire twist-tie to hold the wall cylinder at the desired diameter while doing this.)

Yeah, I know there are other strong beverages than vodka. But that's not the point.

My understanding was that people generally mixed vodka (and other things like it: scotch, jack, tequilla, anything distilled, really) in with other stuff, like orange juice or something, to make it more... potable.

Other than some kind of twisted hazing ritual, I have difficulty imagining the line of thinking that would lead someone to want to consume it unmixed. That would have to taste remarkably terrible, I should think, even to someone who is accustomed to alcohol. I mean, I like sweet and sour as much as the next person, but I'm not drinking vinegar straight.

(Reminds me of the Jehovah's Witness who asked me what day Christmas was. I told him "You're allowed to know.")

What would you drink out of something like that, straight vodka?

Yes, that is the usual procedure.

I think you'll find there are one or two other beverages of similar strength.

So anyway, two tablespoons of fuel in seven minutes does sound very comparable to the standard Pepsi-can stove. A touch faster, perhaps, but comparable. So, fine for boiling noodles, but not exactly what you want for cooking rice.

It occurs to me is that a smaller-diameter burner might be a better option than fewer holes, because it is desirable to have a full ring of flame so that fuel rising in the middle passes through the flame and is burned.

When I mention it above, the measure I used was one of my plethora of plastic shot glasses. They're the standard Australian "shot" size, thirty millilitres, which is almost exactly one US fluid ounce (and therefore about the same as every standard small bar shot glass). Allowing for a bit of wastage, you should get about thirty refills from a one-litre bottle of meths.

(30ml of roughly 40%-alcohol spirits, by the way, is also one Australian standard drink. A US standard drink is 1.4 Australian drinks. So a 2.25-litre Darwin Stubby of VB, which I think you'll find is a perfectly unremarkable Australian beverage, contains 10.8 Australian drinks or 7.7 US ones. A two-litre yard of Polish Pure Spirit contains one hundred and sixty Australian drinks, or 114.3 American ones.)