An important open question in fluid dynamics concerns the effect of small scales in structuring a fluid flow. In oceanic or atmospheric flows, this is aptly captured in wave–current interactions through the study of the well-known Langmuir secondary circulation. Such wave–current interactions are described by the Craik–Leibovich system, in which the action of a wave-induced velocity, the Stokes drift, produces a so-called “vortex force” that causes streaking in the flow. In this work, we show that these results can be generalized as a generic effect of the spatial inhomogeneity of the statistical properties of the small-scale flow components. As demonstrated, this is well captured through a stochastic representation of the flow.