It sounds like your expectations might be a bit high - if you're constantly giving verbal instructions which he is ignoring and then you implement consequences and he does it again the next time, then the approach might not be the right one.
I find it's most helpful to think about controlling the environment, rather than expecting a toddler to control their behaviour in response to adult instructions. That comes later, more like around age 4 (funnily enough, most people who find the toddler stage tough report it improves drastically by 4!)
It also helps to have a little understanding of development.
Their language processing is extremely basic - they are probably picking up maybe 1-2 words out of anything that you say at any time. 2-3 if they are an older toddler (over 3). So it really helps to keep instructions positive (drink on the table) rather than negative (don't throw the drink) or lengthy (don't throw the drink please darling, mummy will be cross as it's making a mess). If they're only getting 2 words out of everything, make sure you're not including words that don't pertain exactly to the message you want!
But also - language/verbal instructions are of very limited use anyway. Toddlers are very, very sensory beings and tend to explore things and basically "live" with their whole bodies, testing all the different physical possibilities. It's not until around 4/5 that they start understanding the world in a more verbal or story-oriented manner. Toddlers are more about the physical. (Probably why corporal punishment was often used in this age range in previous generations - obviously not recommended now). So what you can do with this info is - stop relying on instructions. You can still give an instruction, but I'd always always always 100% of the time, combine the instruction (or explanation) with an action. So when you say "No, don't touch" - move him away as you say that. When he's throwing his drink "Drink on the table" and physically take hold of the cup and move it to the table. Over time, the combination of the instructions and action will sink in and you won't need to perform Once they are about 2, many children will answer simple questions and follow simple instructions sometimes, (e.g. "Get Daddy's shoes, and we'll go for a walk") so we can make the incorrect assumption that they are following everything that we say accurately and processing it as we do, but this is unlikely to be the case.
Redirection is an amazing tip for this age - think about what they are doing and redirect into an appropriate activity. I don't do water play in the house but for example if they were hitting/throwing you can redirect that into a hammer-and-ball toy or toy construction set with plastic nails or drum set, or throwing balls/beanbags into a box. Again REALLY simple/clear and combine instruction with action: "No hitting people. You can hit this drum." Google Schema in play for a really useful concept that works with redirection.
Sometimes you can take action without saying anything at all, e.g. remove the drink if it's being flung everywhere and wipe up the spill.
Their sense of time is almost non existent - they basically have "now" and nothing else until around 2.5 - 3, at which point they have "now" and "not now", and "not now" mainly means the past, but they don't have a good sense of how long ago (this morning or a month ago are all the same). By around 3.5 or 4, they start to anticipate the future, but quite badly and they can get extremely frustrated by this since they frequently predict wrong and then become absolutely overwhelmed by the fact reality is different to their expectation (this is when lots of explaining what will happen next is useful - younger and you might as well explain to the dog, though it doesn't hurt to get into the habit).
But this means that a 2yo for example is extremely unlikely to look at a situation and think "ah, mummy didn't like me doing this last time, I had better not do it again." They are just fully in the moment, with all of the joys and possibilities of this moment. Try to prevent/block things that you don't want them to do. Move the board books to lower shelves - he will probably pull them out and put them back 100 times a day, but doing this is much less irritating than him pulling down your books or DVDs and you getting cross/stressed because they will get damaged.
They also have no awareness that they will get hungry/tired/frustrated/cold later if they aren't now - so it helps to pre-empt those things and try to ensure that they do not reach that state where they are already overwhelmed by a feeling and therefore everything else is much harder.
DH about to take DC out of bath, so I have to go, but I can post more later.