Centuries after their ancestors first turned rice into wine, the Japanese are falling out of love with their traditional tipple.

Once a staple in homes and restaurants, sake is being squeezed out of the affections of the average drinker by imported wine and shochu, a fiery local spirit that is undergoing a renaissance in the trendy bars of Tokyo.

Now that sake's central place in Japanese social occasions is under threat, the country's struggling breweries are pinning their hopes on growing interest on the other side of the Pacific.

While sake is enjoying unprecedented popularity overseas, at home it is in terminal decline. The Japanese drink just a third as much sake as they did 30 years ago, when it accounted for a quarter of all sales of alcoholic drinks. Today the figure is closer to 7%.

Sake's stateside renaissance is being driven by a handful of family-run breweries quick to realise the dangers posed by their compatriots' waning appetite for their national drink.

"People ask if we alter the flavour of our sake to suit the American palate. We do not. We are just selling them sake that we believe is the best around," says Yasutaka Daimon, the sixth-generation head of Daimon, a sake brewery in rural Osaka prefecture.

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