Friday, August 1, 2025
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Friday, August 1, 2025

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Here Are 10 Alternatives to Penzeys Spices

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Sick and tired of Penzeys Spices’ CEO ranting and raving against Republicans? We were a long time ago. But what are the alternatives? It turns out there are a lot of good options, from a veteran-owned business to one that mocks Joe Biden. There are also good alternatives that just keep politics out of the spice business completely.

If you’re googling “Penzeys Spices near me,” consider these options instead unless you prefer vile politics and name-calling with your spice rub.

In case you missed it, Penzeys Spices’ unhinged CEO, Bill Penzey, publicized a weekend offer called “Republicans Are Racist!” We then revealed that Penzey has a mansion in Wauwatosa and NO stores located in Milwaukee’s inner city. That means he’s not just a jerk; he’s also a hypocrite.

We asked our loyal readers for ideas for other spice vendors people can use INSTEAD of Penzeys Spices.

Here’s the List of Alternatives to Penzeys Spices Near Me


1. Frag Out Flavor

Frag Out Flavor is a veteran-owned spice company located out of Colorado. “We provide America-loving patriots with quality seasonings for meals that bring families and friends together.”

The about me page explains, “Frag Out Flavor was founded in 2017 by Patrick Flynn, a combat veteran who served as a 12B (Combat Engineer) in the Army.”

He sells spices called things like “Freedom Spice” (Honey BBQ) and “Liberator” (lemon garlic).

Find the website for Frag Out Flavor here. Find the company’s Facebook page here.

You can shop for their products online.


2. #FJBbq Seasoning

Yeah, FJB means f*** Joe Biden.

You can order the barbeque seasoning here. For good measure, you can buy Trump “Miss Me Yet?” stickers.


3. PS Seasonings

PS Seasonings is a Wisconsin company based out of Iron Ridge Wisconsin.

They sell a variety of items, including meat and cheese, but they also sell seasonings, rubs, and spices.

The company explains, “For almost 60 years, four generations of the Hanni family have been dedicated to mastering the craft of smoking and seasoning. PS Seasoning was formed in 1986 as a natural progression from our industrial meat smoker company: Pro Smoker ‘N Roaster formed in 1977 but our experience dates back well before our companies were born.”

You can buy their products online.

Find the website for PS Seasonings here. Find their Facebook page here.


4. The Spice House

The Spice House originated from the same family as Bill Penzey, and it’s run by his sister. But she’s gone a different route, staying away from politics, and Bill Penzey isn’t involved in The Spice House. Its Facebook page just sells spices – not WOKE politics.

A Washington Examiner story explained:

“Bill Penzey’s sister Patty Erd ran a rival spice blend business, The Spice House, at the time of the 2016 election; she offered a promotion then, too. ‘My husband and I are very careful to never bring politics or personal opinions into our spice company, they have no business there,’ Erd wrote, in the days after her brother’s initial letter decrying racist Republicans.

The promotional code ‘NOPOLITICS’ would secure free shipping, Erd added, for anyone who’d recently found themselves wondering what spice blends have to do with presidential elections. Their sibling rivalry wasn’t new: Bill Penzey Sr. opened The Spice House in 1957. Bill Jr. struck out on his own and incorporated Penzeys in 1986, leaving his sister and her husband to take over the family business in 1992—as his competition.”

You can also buy their products online here.

The company explains, “Founded in 1957, The Spice House is a purveyor of the finest spices, herbs, blends, and extracts to customers ranging from renowned Michelin-star chefs to home cooks everywhere. We’ve spent over 60 years curating our global network of premium growers and distributors in order to offer our customers unrivaled quality and selection. Our products range from essential and rare spice varietals to proprietary rubs and blends.”

Here are the Wisconsin locations and hours:

Milwaukee
1031 N Dr Martin Luther King Jr. Drive 53203
414-272-0977

Hours
Open for in-store shopping and pick up.

Monday-Saturday 9:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m.
Sunday 10:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m.

Milwaukee Public Market
400 North Water Street
414-431-0835

Hours
Open for in-store shopping.

Monday-Saturday 10:00 a.m. – 8:00 p.m.
Sunday 10:00 a.m. – 6:00 p.m.


5. Pleasoning Gourmet Seasoning

The company has an outlet store located at 2109 Ward Avenue, in La Crosse, Wisconsin.

“Pleasoning Gourmet Seasoning has been in business in La Crosse, WI since 1952. We are a small family-owned and operated business, specializing in seasoning blends for everything from our popular All-Purpose Pleasoning to Bloody Mary Mix, Bar-B-Que Seasoning, Garlic-Garlic, Low-Sodium blends and more! Our special seasoning blends can be viewed in our Shop area,” its website says.

It explains, “Pleasoning has been in business in La Crosse, WI. since 1952. Frank Italiano worked the business until age 83 and passed away in 2006. His wife, Lenore, retired from Pleasoning in 2007. Their daughter, Kathy, and son-in-law, Paul Boarman (1955-2021) took over the business in 2005. Kathy and her son Dominic now own and operate the business. They are the only employees.”

You can shop for its products online.

Find the website for Pleasoning Gourmet Seasoning here. Find their Facebook page here.


6. The Spice & Tea Exchange of Mequon

The Spice & Tea Exchange of Mequon is located at 1412 W Mequon Rd., Mequon, Wisconsin.

You can find its website here. They offer local pickup or delivery.

You can also buy their products online here. The Facebook page can be find here.


7. Starla’s Seasoning’s Dips and Mixes

You can find Starla’s website here.

The website touts, “We are so privileged to be: 2018 & 2019 Wisconsin State Fair Grand Champion Eats & Treats Herbal Blend 1st & 2nd Place Winners!.”

Their Facebook page explains, “We are a Wisconsin family-run business. Every seasoning, beer bread mix and dip mix package is made with the finest quality ingredients we can find and is hand-packed and labeled.”

You can buy their product online. The website adds, “I am a female-owned and Wisconsin family-run business. Every package is made with the finest quality ingredients I can find and is hand-packed and labeled.”


8. Curt’s Spice Co. & Oilerie, LLC

Curt’s Spice Co. & Oilerie, LLC, is located 2064 Lime Kiln Rd, Unit 4, Green Bay, WI 54311.

The website can be found here.

He writes, “Since 1993, Curt has been selling his own proprietary master blend of seasoning, Curt’s Table Spice is best on veggies, potatoes, eggs & beef. Curt’s Cooking Spice enhances pork, poultry, veal, lamb & game. Most excellent with tomatoes!”

You can order from his website here.

The owners also have a series of olive oil bars throughout Wisconsin. Find that website here. That website explains, “Amy Jo and Curt Campbell pioneered the olive oil bar concept in America in 2003 so they could deliver premium Italian cooking ingredients like extra virgin olive oil (EVOO) and Italian Balsamic vinegar online or in person at stores to the people who want them.”


9. Epicure

Epicure’s website explains, “Sylvie Rochette founded Epicure in 1997 with a passion to share the healthy eating solutions she had created for her family. Today, Sylvie and her daughter, CEO Amelia Warren, are uniting time-starved families that want to reconnect across the table to share good food, eat healthier, and live better.”

You can buy their products online, including spices, here. The company is located in Salt Lake City, Utah.


10. Karl’s Country Market

You can find Karl’s website here. After a reader suggested it, we called the store, and were told they have a lot of spices to choose from.

The store is located at W156 N5646 Pilgrim Road Menomonee Falls, WI 53051.

They say,

“Welcome to Karl’s Country Market, a business built on hard work, dedication and old-fashioned values. Since we opened our doors in 1965 it has been our goal is to offer each customer the finest quality and service possible, and we are committed to seeing that you come back again and again.

We are pleased to offer a full-line grocery store featuring hard-to-find imported foods, a fresh produce department, liquor department, full-service meat department (that will cut your items to your liking) and, of course, the World Gold Medal Championship Sausages that have earned Karl’s its respect, reputation and over 150 awards.”

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Border Patrol Agents Continue to Arrest Iranians, Weapons Traffickers at Northern Border

At the northern border, Border Patrol agents continue to arrest Iranians and weapons traffickers and are helping seize record amounts of fentanyl.

While illegal border crossings are down at the northern border under the Trump administration, Border Patrol agents in the busiest northern border Swanton Sector are continuing to interdict crime. The sector includes all of Vermont, six upstate New York counties, and three New Hampshire counties.

Earlier this month, Border Patrol Agents from the Champlain Station in New York responded to a report of suspicious activity near Mooers Forks, New York. Upon arrival, they located a minivan occupied by five Iranian citizens and two Uzbekistan citizens – all adult men in the country illegally.

Border Patrol agents then determined all seven men “had previously illegally entered the United States at various locations along both the U.S./Mexico border and the U.S./Canada border,” Swanton Sector Chief Border Patrol Agent Robert Garcia said. They were detained and are being processed for removal.

“Border security is national security and directly correlates to public safety,” Garcia said, adding that “Swanton Sector agents remain vigilant and committed to protecting our borders and enforcing immigration laws.”

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers are also arresting Iranians in the country illegally, including Revolutionary Guard soldiers, after more than 1,500 Iranians illegally entered the U.S. under the Biden administration, with more than 700 released into the U.S., The Center Square exclusively reported.

In another instance, Border Patrol agents notified the New York State Police about a suspected driver of a vehicle allegedly involved in smuggling activity in upstate New York. State troopers responded, located and stopped the vehicle near Albany, Garcia said. A subsequent vehicle search resulted in a seizure of roughly 4.7 pounds of powdered fentanyl, enough to kill more than one million people.

“This seizure is a powerful reminder of why strong partnerships between federal, state, and local law enforcement are vital to our national security and public safety,” Swanton Sector Chief Patrol Agent Robert Garcia said.

In another instance, Border Patrol agents helped ATF federal partners apprehend a criminal foreign national wanted for weapons trafficking. Honduran national Yubert Yasiel Lopez-Lopez, 31, was arrested in North Attleboro, Mass., after he illegally reentered the country after he was previously deported.

He was first apprehended in 2014 after illegally entering the U.S. in Hidalgo, Texas, under the Obama administration. A federal immigration judge in Houston ordered his removal, which occurred four years later under the first Trump administration. In 2022, he again illegally entered the country in Yuma, Arizona, under the Biden administration. It took another three years to arrest him, this time in Massachusetts, with authorities learning he was wanted in Honduras on weapons trafficking charges. A federal grand jury indicted him last month in Vermont, the U.S. Attorney for the District of Vermont announced. He faces up to two years in prison if convicted and removal from the U.S. for a third time.

“We continue to enforce federal immigration laws and seek maximum consequences against those who violate them,” Garcia said.

Garcia also regularly thanks members of the public for supporting Border Patrol efforts, sometimes acting as the eyes and ears for agents in rural areas by calling in sightings of illegal border crossers or suspicious activity. He continues to encourage members of the public to report suspicious border activity in the Swanton Sector by calling 1-800-689-3362.

The sector was hit hard under the Biden administration with illegal border crossings from Canada reaching record levels, totaling nearly one million, according to CBP data and gotaway data exclusively reported by The Center Square. The greatest number ever reported in U.S. history in the sector was in fiscal 2024 of nearly 200,000, excluding those who evaded capture, The Center Square reported.

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Wisconsin Republicans Introduce Bill to Repeal Evers’ 400-Year Veto

(The Center Square) – Wisconsin state legislators have started circulating a bill to repeal Gov. Tony Evers’ 400-year school funding veto.

Evers’ veto in July 2023, which turned a temporary $325 per student K-12 funding increase – originally slated for the 2023-24 and 2024-25 school years – into a permanent increase through the year 2425, was recently upheld by the Wisconsin Supreme Court in April, The Center Square previously reported.

However, the court’s ruling suggested lawmakers could still draft legislation as a recourse to the governor’s partial veto, and Republicans are seeking to do just that.

“The pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock 402 years before this veto. It is hard to justify locking in a funding increase for just as long into the future,” the bill’s four co-authors said in a cosponsorship memo circulating at the state Capitol, WPR reported.

The bill would effectively reverse Evers’ 400-year veto, eliminating the $325 per pupil adjustment in the school district revenue limit formula beginning with the 2026-27 school year.

“One man locked in a tax-raising mechanism that no one voted for and no one approved,” the cosponsorship memo reads. “Evers’ move bypassed both the elected Legislature and the hard-working people who pay the bills.”

However, if the bill passes both chambers of the Legislature, it would ironically require Evers to not veto it in order to become law.

While the Senate had voted to override Evers’ original veto in September 2023, the Assembly never held a vote on the override, so the effort failed and the veto stood.

Will Flanders, the research director at Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty, previously wrote, “The Governor is not a king, even if the state Supreme Court says he is. Given this increase, the legislature should fight hard against any further increases for public schools that are now set up for a boondoggle.”

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Wisconsin Cities, Counties Saw Drop in June Unemployment Rate

(The Center Square) – Wisconsin saw the June unemployment rate go down in 24 of the state’s largest 35 cities over the month while the rates lowered in 63 counties and stayed the same in eight more, according to new numbers from the state’s Department of Workforce Development.

Wisconsin’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate went down to 3.2% in June, less than the 4.1% national rate.

Wisconsin’s labor force participation rate went down to 65.1% in June while the national rate decreased slightly to 62.3%.

Wisconsin saw 10 of its largest metropolitan areas show unemployment decreases while three of those areas remained the same. Twelve of the metropolitan areas saw unemployment decreases over the year while the rate in Sheboygan remained the same.

Menominee, meanwhile, was the only county that saw a month over month increase in unemployment rate while the rate increased in just four counties year over year.

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Tulsi Gabbard Releases New Intel Claiming FBI, CIA ‘Knowingly created’ Russia Hoax

Federal officials have released more documents indicating a Democratic-led intelligence community politically targeted President Donald Trump by claiming that Russian President Vladimir Putin influenced the 2016 presidential election to help Trump win.

U.S. Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard declassified a 2020 House Intelligence Committee report Wednesday that “exposes how the Obama Administration manufactured the January 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment that they knew was false.”

“The Russia Hoax was a lie that was knowingly created by the Obama Administration to undermine the legitimacy and power of the duly elected President of the United States, Donald Trump,” Gabbard posted on X.

Notably, the report found that the majority of the intelligence community’s judgements on Russia’s confirmed attempts to meddle with the 2016 election were “sound,” including its findings that Putin ordered “conventional and cyber influence operations” to undermine faith in the U.S. democratic process and the legitimacy of an expected Hillary Clinton presidency.

However, further judgments from the intelligence community alleging that Putin “developed a clear preference for candidate Trump” and “aspired to help his chances of victory” were not only false but also the result of apparent bad faith, the oversight investigation reveals.

To reach their conclusion that Putin had attempted to help Trump win, top intelligence officials cherry-picked inconclusive information that supported the narrative, omitted or suppressed information contradicting the narrative, and based their “high confidence” assumptions on untrustworthy and dishonest sources.

The report builds upon other documents that Gabbard declassified over the weekend showing that Obama, along with his senior advisors, reportedly pressured the intelligence community to contrive evidence that Russia intended to manipulate the vote count in Trump’s favor.

The Trump administration believes these efforts amounted to a “coup” meant to delegitimize the results of the 2016 election and cast doubts on Trump’s presidency.

Rep. Rick Crawford, R-Ark., said Wednesday that the “Russia hoax will go down as one of the most troublesome events in U.S. history” that caused the country to become “more polarized than ever before.”

“A President of the United States was falsely accused, and a nation had to endure lies fabricated by rogue personnel within their own Intelligence Community,” Crawford said on X. “There are still Americans who passionately believe the fabricated narrative. That is why releasing this document to the public has been so important.”

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2026 GOP Candidate Josh Schoemann Challenges Evers’ Budget Approach

(The Center Square) – Josh Schoemann, the only Republican currently in the race for governor next year, is criticizing Gov. Tony Evers’ approach to the next state budget by comparing it to his plans in Washington County.

“In Washington County our budget cycle starts right now, and it’s not due until November. We will propose our budget goals to the County Board in the next couple of months. We will share ‘This is what we’re thinking.’ It gives them months of time to think those through, give us feedback, and [have] that kind of dialogue,” Schoemann explained in an interview on News Talk 1130 WISN.

Schoemann said that is far better than the approach Evers is taking again this year.

“That’s not how government is supposed to work,” Schoemann said. “It’s not the vision of the governor. It’s not the vision of any one person.”

Evers and the Republican legislative leaders who will write the budget have been involved in on-again, off-again budget talks this month. On Thursday, the governor’s office said those talks were off once again because of gridlock in the Senate.

“Ultimately, the Senate needs to decide whether they were elected to govern and get things done or not,” Evers spokesperson Britt Cudaback said in a post on X.

Schoemann’s criticism of Evers is nothing new. He has long been a critic of the governor and has turned that criticism up since launching his campaign for governor.

But the recent criticism was also aimed at other Republicans who may jump into the 20206 governor’s race later this year.

“Nobody else in this race on the Republican side, being rumored to this point, has the executive leadership of skills and history to be able to show ‘This is how I’ve done it before, and here’s how we’ll do it Madison,’” Schoemann said. “The results in Washington County speak for themselves.”

Northwoods Congressman Tom Tiffany is also rumored to be looking to get into the Republican race. Before he went to Congress, Tiffany was a Republican lawmaker in Madison.

Businessman and veteran Bill Berrien is also on the short list of likely GOP candidates for 2026.

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