Gold rush flavor. Zero pickaxes required.

In the fall of 1895, electrician Douglas McClain went rabbit hunting near Hicks Mountain. Then the day took a turn. Lost in the timber as dusk turned to snow, he came upon an outcrop of white quartz—an eighteen-foot vein, by his account.

The next morning, samples revealed rose quartz full of coarse gold, said to be worth $10,000 a ton. Naturally, the storm had covered his route. Searches in 1896 and 1897 found nothing. The ledge was never seen again. Mountains can be rude like that.

More than a century later, that rare find in the Colorado mountains gives our popcorn its name—and a gold-rush spirit that is considerably easier to locate.