At 5:30 p.m. on a recent Saturday evening, the line of people at the entrance to the Smile Nihonshu sake event was six deep. Inside the bar, groups of young people in their 20s and 30s clinked glasses and nodded along to a bouncy rendition of Bob Marley's "Buffalo Soldier" under a green-lit disco ball. On the surface of things, it looked like a regular night out in central Tokyo's Shinjuku district, but with one difference — everyone was drinking sake.

The scene offered a striking contrast to the usual image of sake drinkers. When asked to describe the typical sake consumer, brewers invariably sigh and say that the majority are men between the ages of 45 and 70. That's not very encouraging given that, according to statistics from the Japan Sake Brewers' Association, average sake consumption has declined from 11.5 liters per capita in 1997 to just 6.4 liters today. If sake is going to have any hope of competing with the ever-expanding range of alcoholic drinks on the market, the industry will have to reach a younger demographic.

The question of how to get young people interested in the brew has vexed sake-makers for years. Hacchaku Ono, who organizes the Smile Nihonshu event, thinks the solution is to get rid of sake's old-fashioned, conservative image.