This ethnographic research centers on Cap Tikus, a popular alcoholic drink in Manado, North Sulawesi, Indonesia. It follows the drink from 2014–2016, from its birthplace in the mountains to drinking circles in the city, playfully drawing together the richness of individual experiences, collective harmonization of alcohol effects and affects, and the flows and frictions along the drink’s provisioning pathways. Against the backdrop of sociopolitical initiatives for change, including a regional and national problematization of alcohol and a drive towards modernity led by urban developers, it explores both the different meanings, practices, and socialities that Cap Tikus affords and the drinking circles in which the drink is passed around. New provisioning pathways provided Cap Tikus only to an economically privileged subset of Manadonese society, and the new drinking styles they supported shifting away from communal provisioning and toward more individualistic, capitalist structures. These subtle (and less subtle) ways that the power relations involving Cap Tikus shaped society, further segregating it according to class and gender, thus link to broader discussions about the uneven development of Manado. These competing visions of how alcohol should be consumed in a modern city reflected broader changes to understandings of the way Manado should be constructed and inhabited. This ethnography is accompanied by a supplementary audiovisual exploration, further demonstrating the power of these initiatives for change and the youth resistance against them.