The state of Colorado once supplied the entire nation with potatoes, with a crop larger than that of Idaho’s. The potatoes were so good that when Teddy Roosevelt came through on a hunting trip and ate them he actually remembered their exceptional taste and texture. Later, when he became president, he demanded that Roaring Fork Valley potatoes be served at his inaugural. So what happened to these potatoes so famous that they eclipsed Idaho’s russets and Long Island’s fingerlings? It wasn’t a blight, like Ireland’s, but an end to Colorado’s silver rush. Once the state’s mines were shuttered the trains to bring ore to Denver stopped running. No trains meant that the crop couldn’t get to market without a huge increase in transportation costs. Suddenly even the best potatoes in America weren’t worth the cost of growing them. Luckily, in the form of vodka, the economics of Woody Creek Distillers will be a little more stable, train or no train.