About Us

German Heritage Brought to the Heart of Venice

Sunset is a project of friends and family in Venice, California to bring Germany's most iconic soft drink to the United States.

This is Germany's most iconic soft drink. Known in Germany as Spezi, the orange cola from Munich has achieved cult status among its millions of fans.

Sunset is a community-driven project to finally bring the most German of sodas to the United States.

In the 1950s, bartenders in Bavaria had an idea to solve the cola shortage. By mixing cola with orange soda, they created a new drink popularly called Spezi - a slang term for buddy.

Originally a mix-it-yourself drink, the first bottled orange colas appeared on the German market in the 60s. In 1974, Paulaner decided to use its brewing expertise to develop Paulaner Spezi.

A true snapshot of the psychedelic revolution taking place in Munich at the time, the then 290-year-old brewery's orange cola was smooth and mellow, with a high fruit content and low carbonation.

The typeface and five-color wave borrowed elements from Otl Aicher's work for the '72 Munich Olympics. The label is said to be a hallucinogenic depiction of a sunset over the Olympiaberg.

Paulaner chose a brown beer bottle to protect the soft drink from the sun's rays.

Today, Paulaner Sunset is unique in the soft drink landscape. It is still produced the same way it was in 1974 - from the recipe to the label - not to mention the name change that allowed it to leave Germany for the first time in 50 years.