In this article, I explore how liquor acts as a medium through which the effects of structural
violence are diffracted and become embodied as personal and collective risk in Cape Town,
South Africa. Drawing on focus group respondents’ experiences of alcohol and its
consequences, I argue that: (1) Risky alcohol consumption emerges as form of coping,
escapism and pleasure under situations of structural violence. (2) Drinking practices and their
consequences contribute to and reinforce broader conditions of structural violence. (3)
Alcohol-related harms (e.g. violence, crime, injury, poor health) and the settings in which
they unfold (e.g. townships, informal settlements, and unlicensed drinking venues) have
tended to dominate policy interventions, rather than the very structural conditions that
engender them. In working through these arguments, I make novel empirical and conceptual
contributions to the study of alcohol within geography as well as reflecting on the multiple
tensions at work within South African liquor policy