Jon Hanson Has a Vanilla Mission @ Hanson's Vanilla Co., From Air Force To Hot Honey & Pumpkin Spice

Jon Hanson joined the Air Force in 1991, served more than 23 years under the core values of integrity first, service before self, and excellence in all we do, and retired in 2015. After Kansas City and a short civilian contracting detour, a COVID-era baking binge—and a hard family rule against imitation vanilla—sent his overactive brain into “afterburner.” He began sourcing beans from the vanilla belt (20–25% above and below the equator), learning how terroir shifts flavor across cultivars like Madagascar (creamy-smooth), Tahitensis (light, floral, fruity), Indonesian (darker, sweeter), Mexican (deep, rich), and Ugandan (chocolatey notes). He now blends and bottles as Hansen’s Vanilla Company (hansenvanilla.com), warning shoppers to avoid UV-exposed clear plastic bottles and “pure” labels padded with synthetics or sugars—good extract should be just water, alcohol, and vanilla bean extractives. Hanson explains FDA alcohol thresholds and why he sometimes uses potato-based ethanol for gluten-sensitive buyers, plus how he partners with Proof Distillery for scaled projects and ages select extracts in oak for six months to pull natural vanillins and oaky depth. Beyond bottles, he infuses local honey from Three Bears Honey (Fargo), Darlat Dash Apiary (Valley City), and Morlock Honey (Casselton) into cinnamon-vanilla, Mexican-mocha, hot honey tiers, pumpkin spice, and apple-cinnamon seasonal jars. You’ll find him selling direct at hansenvanilla.com and on Walmart.com, with placements at Luna Market and First Avenue Market downtown, tastes at the Red River Market and the West Acres mall Thursdays, and road dates with Pride of Dakota (including Carmen’s Kitchen Table in Bismarck). He dreams of a Fargo storefront and a vanilla-forward ice cream truck, and he already collaborates locally with Noble Smokehouse on barbecue-friendly flavor. Along the way we talk vendor-show culture, batch timing (one to two months per tank), shelf life (years, though flavor slowly fades), why community beats algorithms (his Amazon stint ended over “pure” labeling games), and how two past guests—Ebony and Mr. Zotnik—nudged him onto the mic. We close with Jon’s pick, Phil Wickham’s “This Is Our God,” a nod to the faith that has fueled his new mission.