Sake is booming in New York. Bartenders mix the sweet rice wine into cocktails and drinkers now ask for brands by name instead of ordering house, warm, or cold. In Japan, however, sake is out, pushed aside by shochu, a spirit distilled from, among other things, sweet potato, rice, buckwheat, or sugarcane. And the drink is quickly becoming a hit in New York, too.

In November, the West Village sushi restaurant En Brasserie named its lounge En Shochu, increasing its shochu list from six to more than 20 varieties. The crystalclear drink will get another boost later this year when the Food Network’s “Iron Chef,” Masaharu Morimoto, launches his own label of shochu, to be served in his restaurants.

“The sake market is taking off right now and shochu is riding its coattails,” a coowner and buyer for Landmark Wine and Sake in Chelsea, Kane Soon, said. Landmark, among the leading Japanese drink retailers in the city, has expanded its shochu selection to more than 80 varieties today from 20 two years ago. “Shochu sales and shochu demand is where sake sales and sake demand was five years ago.”

Once considered a drink of the Japanese poor, shochu is now undergoing a boom at home. Young Japanese people now snub sake as the drink of their parents. A clear and smooth spirit, shochu typically measures 25% alcohol, but can contain as much 40% depending on the distillation process. It is usually sipped alone or on the rocks, shaken into a cocktail, or mixed with hot or cold water.

Shochu has roots in China, Thailand, and Korea, where its cousin, soju, is hugely popular. Most Americans refer to shochu as “Japanese vodka,” and cheaper, higher-alcohol varieties have been available in America for several decades. This less-refined shochu gives off a strong smell and a burning, plastic-bottle vodka flavor. Recent advancements in distilling techniques have produced new varieties made with such ingredients as carrot, soba, and sesame.

It’s these new varieties that have sparked the boom in Japan and the birth of stateside bars like En Shochu that thrive in Japanese-American enclaves including Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Seattle. In New York, Mr. Soon says sales of shochu at Landmark in recent months have grown drastically.

When Mr. Morimoto, the chef at Morimoto in Chelsea and Philadelphia, first arrived in America in 1985, “the sake wasn’t even good enough,” he said. He began seeing growth in shochu about five years ago, and “little by little” it has grown in mainstream Japanese restaurants including his own, where he offers six types of shochu.

“When I opened in Philly five years ago, people drink house sake, house sake, house sake,” he said. “I teach people to drink sake properly. It will take time.”

At En Shochu, sake sommelier Takahiro Okada introduces shochu to customers in a number of ways. Six clear decanters of infused shochus marinate at the chiseled wooden bar. He offers flavors such as apricot, fig, pineapple, and tomato.

The drink menu boasts two pages of high-end shochus, in eight flavors ranging in price from $6 to $10 for a 2.5-ounce glass warm or on the rocks. “I prefer it this way,” Mr. Okada said, picking up a straight pour of sweet potato shochu and giving it a deep smell, the way one would a glass of wine. “The young generation doesn’t drink vodka on the rocks or tequila on the rocks or whiskey on the rocks.”

The flavor of straight shochu varies widely depending on the base ingredient. Barley has just a subtle taste of grain, and the least amount of flavor. Sugarcane is bit more robust; the sweet flavor lasts well after the drink has been swallowed. Awamari, a Thai rice, packs the wilder flavor of sweet grain that is much more robust than regular rice shochu. The most notable is the sweet-potato shochu, which is smooth the way a single malt scotch tastes. It leaves only the light fragrance and flavor of a sweet potato.

For now, the majority of shochu drinkers at En Shochu are Japanese, but that is changing.

“At first, Japanese people tended to order shochu by the glass, and American people seemed to order a shochu flight,” the special-event manager for En Shochu and En Brasserie, Courtney Kaplan, said. “Now, every once in a while, you see them order a bottle and know the brand name. The level of education seems to be increasing.”