Whisky.com: From Free Domain Registration to a $3.1 Million Sale

In the spring of 1995, most people didn’t have email. Netscape was only just becoming a thing and registering a domain name seemed like the sort of hobby only techies and futurists cared about.

Yet, in Los Angeles, musician-turned-entrepreneur Michael Castello sat at his computer and typed in a single word that would one day make domain history: Whisky.com.

At the time it was free. No credit card and no idea that two decades later the domain would command a multi-million dollar price tag. He registered it partly because he enjoyed Scotch, partly because of the legendary Whisky a Go Go nightclub where his band once played. A hobbyist’s instinct had planted a flag in what would later be called digital real estate.

From Free Registration to Priceless Asset

For the next two decades, Castello’s patience was tested. Offers trickled in almost immediately. In 1996, a German professor emailed to make an offer, but Castello declined. “The professor initially offered me $100 but I wanted $1,000,” Castello recalled. “He then came back the next year to offer the $1,000. I countered with $10,000, and again declined. He once again came back a year later and offered $10,000. I told him what was $10,000 last year was now worth $100,000 and he scoffed. I never heard from him again.”

It wasn’t arrogance. It was conviction.

When asked why he kept saying no for nearly 20 years, Castello said: “Looking into the future, the offers were never what I thought the name was worth. I had gotten a $600k offer a few months before the sale and turned it down.”

Castello believed single-word .coms were instantly authoritative and inherently global. He even developed a whisky portal, creating hundreds of brand pages and taking his Whisky.com business cards to whisky festivals. The response was overwhelming: distilleries ushered him behind the booths, whisky fans treated him like an insider. The name carried weight before he had written a line of code.

Meanwhile in Bavaria: The Whisky.de Story

Across the Atlantic, in a lakeside town in Bavaria, Horst and Theresia Lüning had been following a very different path. In 1993, they founded The Whisky Store, later branded Whisky.de, at a time when whisky barely registered in Germany’s drinking culture.

Their passion was genuine. Horst recorded video tastings long before YouTube became mainstream. Theresia managed the logistics of growing a mail-order business. Together they built not just a shop, but a community: forums with tens of thousands of members, millions of video views, and one of the most comprehensive whisky databases in Europe.

By 2013, Whisky.de had 17 million monthly hits. But there was a ceiling. The German-language market was rich, yet whisky’s true scale was global. To reach beyond Bavaria, they needed a name that was universal.

The Broker, the Offer, and the Standoff

Enter Toofun, a Canadian domain blogger running TorontoDomainer.com. Castello met him in 2013 and, over coffee in Los Angeles, agreed to let him broker Whisky.com. Castello’s ask was ambitious: between $3 and $6 million.

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Whisky Magazine once dangled $200,000. A British investor offered one million pounds. Castello shrugged them all off.

Within days, Whisky.de surfaced as the serious contender. Offers climbed to $2M, and Castello held firm. He had spent nearly two decades saying “no” to lesser offers, and he wasn’t going to stop now.

Finally, Whisky.de agreed: $3.1 million for the domain name alone. On January 2, 2014, the money was wired. Castello had turned a free 1995 registration into one of the most talked-about domain sales of all time.

For Castello, the moment was bittersweet. “I saw it as a win–win, but I still didn’t like letting go of the name,” he said. “I don’t like selling any of my names—that’s part of what gives me an edge. I have no problem saying no. The key is to take the emotion out of it. Whether you’re selling something worth $10,000 or $100 million, it’s just a number. If you truly know the value of what you hold, stick to your guns. In the end, you’ll be proven right or wrong—and the more often you’re right, the more people will seek you out as an authority in your space.”

Building a Second Life for Whisky.com

For Whisky.de, the acquisition was less about a trophy and more about strategy. On March 3, 2014, they announced their plans: Whisky.com would become an English-language mirror of their thriving German portal, with over 1,000 editorial articles, nearly 10,000 distillery photos, and a forum ready to expand to an international audience.

At first, Whisky.com Media was a team of just three employees. “Give us five to ten years,” they said, “the same way Whisky.de took 20 years to lead in Germany.” They were in no rush. Whisky, after all, is a drink of patience.

By 2016, Horst’s son Benedikt took over leadership, representing a new generation. Under his watch, the company has expanded into new markets, translating decades of expertise into global reach. Today, Whisky.com is a hub where whisky lovers share reviews, watch tastings, and join discussions that span continents.

Lessons in Patience, Passion, and Timing

• Patience pays: Castello spent 19 years turning down six-figure offers before the right buyer came along.
• Category names endure: Words like Whisky.com and Beer.com carry permanent authority.
• Authenticity matters: The Lünings weren’t speculators; they were whisky people and that made their vision credible.
• Think globally, act locally. Whisky.de dominated Germany, and Whisky.com opened the door to the world.

Castello frames it this way: “Unlike real estate, domain names don’t have an objective or universally accepted valuation standard. With a house, I can look at comparable sales in my neighborhood and have a fairly accurate sense of what it’s worth, both locally and globally. Generic .com domains, however, don’t fit into a comparable system, so as owners we have to establish and demonstrate their true value ourselves.”

Legacy

Today, Whisky.com is more than a domain. It’s a living case study in how vision, timing, and passion can converge across continents.

Michael Castello proved the value of patience with digital assets, and the Lüning family proved that genuine passion, nurtured over decades, could scale globally.

In the end, Whisky.com wasn’t just sold. It was elevated from a hobbyist’s free registration to a Bavarian family’s global vision. The $3.1 million price tag was the headline, but the real story is how Whisky.com showed the world that a single word can carry the weight of an entire industry.

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