Name sells for $3.1 million — Whisky.com domain

Michael Castello gives details behind blockbuster $3.1 million domain name sale.

Michael Castello (with his brother David known as “The Castello Brothers”) has sold the domain name Whisky.com for $3.1 million, DNJournal noted today.

This is a phenomenal sale. Michael Castello did a great job explaining how the sale came to be. Here are some of the highlights from my perspective:

* The buyer owns Whisky.de. ccTLD owners still want the .com version of their domain names.

* The sale bests Roy Messer’s 2006 sale of Vodka.com. That was back in the good ole’ days, but even then it seemed like an outlier. A lot of people (myself included) thought people were crazy for asking similar prices for their liquor domain names.

* Given the two common spellings of whisky and whiskey, this sale is even more impressive.

* You know that blog TorontoDomainer.com? The owner made $310,000 off of this sale by helping to broker the domain. Not only that, but Toofun from TorontoDomainer.com got to know Michael Castello since Michael reached out to him when he was in Toronto. This shows the power of relationships. Even when you’re not sure what someone can do for you, it’s worth establishing relationships.

What an incredible feel-good story.