Meet Bobby Jackson of Black Bear Distillery and Paragon Culinary School

Today we’d like to introduce you to Bobby Jackson.

Bobby, before we jump into specific questions about the business, why don’t you give us some details about you and your story.
I was born & raised in the Green Mountain Falls/Cascade area until we moved to Manitou Springs when I was 12 years old. I attended Manitou School District 14 from 1st grade to 12th. My initial experiences with food were based around my grandfather, Joe Traficanti, who was an Italian Chef. I began cleaning & serving at the Santa’s Workshop Ice Cream Parlor (Carousel Cafe) when I was 13 (1996) and progressed to grill cook when I was 16. I worked multiple positions for the company, including non-food positions, off & on until 2010. That last position I held there was a Food Service Supervisor. I worked there intermittently because, after high school, I attended Colorado State University from 2000-2002. I loved CSU and Fort Collins, but I tried to avoid working with food & I was a terrible student.

My motivations never included a culinary career or college, but I went because my parents wanted all of us to go to college. My grades were pretty bad & I just wasn’t happy as a student, so I got myself healthy & enlisted in the Air Force in 2004, which was what I had wanted since about 7th grade. I chose an enlisted aircrew position, Air Battle Management, which was operationally referred to as Air Surveillance Technician. In those four years, I was sent to five states. One of those states was Florida, I was stationed at Tyndall AFB during Hurricane Katrina. I’m one of those people who always volunteered to remain in place during hurricanes. It seemed like everywhere the Air Force needed me, I ended up doing some sort of food work.

When I wasn’t performing my official duties, I was always cooking for somebody or serving somebody or setting up meals for various groups. The most important time in my life happened in 2005 when I met my friend Shannon, who would become my wife the following year. I became a father to her daughter, Kayla, and then we had twins, Bobby (the 3rd) & Marianne. When my contract was up in 2008, we decided to move back to Manitou Springs. I spent a couple of months as a civilian when Shannon told me that I needed to go talk to a recruiter. Being a full-time civilian was awful, but I didn’t really want to rejoin active duty & I was ready to go back to work in kitchens. I told the Colorado Army National Guard recruiter that I had just left the Air Force & I wanted to cook for the Army, he laughed and then realized I was serious.

A couple hours later, my paperwork was done and I was assigned to a unit in Boulder. I cooked for that unit from 2009-2014. In 2011, I decided the culinary degree would be useful, but it needed to be from a school that taught cooking in a kitchen, not out of a book. It turned out that Master Chef Victor Matthews, who also owned the fine dining restaurant in my hometown of Green Mountain Falls, had founded Paragon Culinary School while I was off doing other things. By the time I got out of the National Guard in January 2014, I had graduated and started taking post-grad teaching courses, as well as working in a school operated test kitchen for a new restaurant in the Springs. I think, in those years, I basically proved to Chef Victor that I was just crazy enough to be useful.

By mid-2014, I was starting to teach at Paragon, transforming Black Bear Restaurant into Black Bear Distillery, working in a couple of local restaurants & helping my best friend at his cafe whenever I could. Since 2015, I have been in my current position, with only changed in the official title. Black Bear Distillery Transformational Manager has become Distillery Manage/Instructor. Paragon Culinary School Instructor has become Senior Instructor/Veteran Liaison. My overall duties include being Chef Victor’s right hand, distilling, teaching and being available for the next crazy idea. The Black Bear/Paragon team includes my wife (& kids, occasionally), so it’s not just figuratively like a family, it is family. I’m super happy and super blessed to be where I am today.

Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
Certainly not. Some people have definitely had rougher roads than mine and some have had easier. There were some rough spots that I’m not ready to talk to anyone about, but I don’t let them interfere with life now. The roughest spots, for me, actually lead to where I am now. My grandfather died in 2011, which gave me a bit of a push to focus on my culinary path. My grandmother died in 2005, my wife helped me through that period which partially leads to our relationship evolving from friendship to marriage. I’ve also had to same struggles that most people have. Like injuries that don’t just limit my ability to work, but they limit my daily life quite a bit. I doubt myself constantly and I am my harshest critic. There’s more about myself that I dislike than there are things that I like about myself.

I’m the only one of three sons who didn’t get a normal college degree, I joined the military (which my parents disapproved of), my family has only eaten at a restaurant that I worked in for one meal and they don’t come to Black Bear Distillery during business hours unless they’re invited. I’m clearly the “black sheep” of the family, but that’s ok because I’m very aware of the fact that I am where I’m supposed to be. I have a supportive wife & kids, I’m back in my hometown, I work in places that I spent time in as a child and I’m happy with what I do everyday. I get to teach people, help people, help my fellow veterans and make unique spirits that are grain-to-glass. I think that an easily travelled road isn’t worth travelling.

Please tell us about Black Bear Distillery and Paragon Culinary School.
Paragon Culinary School is a private, elite culinary school. We are VA approved & state accredited. In our three year program, students receive classroom training and 1000+ hours of actual kitchen training (for perspective, the average culinary program is longer, more expensive & students spend about 300 hours in the kitchen). We’re proud of the number of our students & graduates who are running restaurant kitchens all over the world. We have graduates running kitchens in France, China and other countries, as well as all over the US.

Black Bear Distillery is a grain-to-glass distillery. Our products are made by hand from start to finish using grains grown in Alamosa, CO and corn grown by the Ute Mountain tribe in Southern Colorado. We make MountainShine, Colorado Rum, 1889 & Irish Style Bourbon. Each spirit has a unique history & story of their own. We give tours of the distillery and tastings of our products by appointment in the winter, but tours & tastings are open to the public every Saturday, Memorial Day to Labor Day, 1 PM-8 PM. The summer Saturdays also include cocktails & a food truck.

In both cases, we take pride in our personal touch and our dedication to producing wonderful additions to the world, whether it’s a spirit, a bartender, a wine expert or a culinarian. We are not shy about our faith either and we are certain that we do what we do because that’s the goal God laid out for us

If you had to go back in time and start over, would you have done anything differently?
I would love to say that I would enlist out of high school, instead of attempting to go to college or pick a different career field in the Air Force, or something like that. But in the end, I think the way it all happened is what got me to this specific point, that’s the way it was supposed to happen. Doing something differently might just mess up the current situation.

Pricing:

• Black Bear Distillery products range from $25-$55 per bottle (at the distillery)

Contact Info:

• Address: 4595 Hilton Pkwy
  Suite 202
• Phone: 7199642990
• Email: sentry1407@gmail.com
• Facebook: facebook.com/blackbeardistillery
• Other: https://www.facebook.com/ParagonCulinarySchool/

Image Credit:
Bob Jackson, Shannon Jackson

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