Back in late 1994 I had a vision of what a virtual world could look like with the introduction of the commercial web to the public. I felt there would be an exodus of people moving from the industrial world into the virtual world. A decade earlier I was using the stage name Michael Seven. As an accomplished singer/songwriter I learned much of my trade in New York City and was taken under the wings by Tin Pan Alley songwriter great, Lou Stallman. After some success in New York City, my brother David and I moved the band to Los Angeles where we performed in the local music scene playing clubs such as the Roxy and Whisky a Go Go.  

Sometime around 1994 when Los Angeles suffered the Northridge earthquake I became ill. I couldn’t figure out what was happening to me. I was feeling very weak and made the decision to see a doctor. I wondered if I had valley fever or chronic fatigue syndrome. The doctor did a battery of tests and came back with a shocker. He told me what I had is incurable and was going to eventually kill me. At the time I was married to my wife Sheri and we had a 2 year old son Jonathan. I wasn’t ready for that kind of 

Michael Seven (AKA Michael Castello)

news. My wife made me the best meals trying to get me healthy. We were even gluten free back then. No processed sugars, only healthy eating and juicing.

Michael & Sheri Castello on the Sunset Strip

I decided to register more, one being Whisky.com. I had the original registration in March of 1995, and I registered it for free. I always liked Scotch whisky, but the real reason I registered Whisky.com was because of the Whisky a Go Go night club in Hollywood. I always enjoyed “The Whisky”, with its musical heritage and scene where the likes of The Doors and Janis Joplin played. Years later, I even offered Whisky.com to the owner’s son and he told me he didn’t need it since they already registered WhiskyaGoGo.com. That rejection would prove to be good for me.

Back in 1995/96 the internet was viewed as a fad. No one really took it as being anything other than a digital rolodex.  Around 1996-97 Network Solutions started retroactively charging anyone with a .com/.net/.org a hundred dollars for two years per domain name registration. I really did not have that kind of 

Over the next several years I created a website for Whisky.com. It was a pretty expansive site at the time since I created a page for every brand of whisky – and there were hundreds. The site took on a life of its own, ranking at the top of search for just about every type of whisky. There were several large conventions, like WhiskyFest and WhiskyLive, and I decided to make some Whisky.com business cards and attend a few events. 

I started out walking around the distillery display tables where you could sample great whisky. I walked up to the table to tell them that I was the owner of Whisky.com and handed them a Whisky.com business card. I told them I would like to have a picture for the website. They would all stop what they were doing and have me come behind their booth to take pictures with me while everyone else out in front of the table asked who I was. It seemed Whisky.com was a big hit and everyone 

Michael Castello at one of the many whisky connoisseurs conventions he attended to learn more about the industry.

gave me their full attention. I realized this is what happens with a Hyper Domain Name like Whisky.com. There is already a built in trust factor, and it greets you like a Lamborghini in the fast lane.

Toofun of TorontoDomainer.com holds the $310,000 Castello Brothers check he received for brokering the $3.1 million sale of Whisky.com. It took just seven days from the time the name was listed to find a buyer. 

I was doing business in Toronto in 2013 and while on the jet I remembered a domain blog named Toronto Domainer. I wrote a post on this blog telling the author, Toofun, that I would be in his neck of the woods and asked if he would like to join me for a few drinks to talk domain names. Toofun wrote back that he would. At the time, he was dealing in three to four figure domain name sales, and he was also a camera operator for several major films in Toronto.

 He told an incredible story of his family fleeing the Iranian Revolution, explaining how his mother and siblings went from country to country trying to survive, hoping eventually to reach the USA. He mentioned how he would love to come to California; I told him to book a flight and I would introduce him to the area and some of my friends. He took me up on my offer, finally settling in Los Angeles and eventually getting his green card!

I remember him sitting across from me one morning, at the local coffee shop on the beach. He said, “I would like a chance to sell one of your premium domain names”. I thought about it for a second and said I would let him sell Whisky.com – but I wanted 3 to 5 million dollars for it. He said he would get right on it. I believe that, in life, the things that you want, you have to ask for, and I appreciated that moment.

Toofun immediately started contacting companies, and within a day he had two offers for the “domain name only”: one offer for $200,000, and another for £1,000,000. I was very 

impressed, but I told him that he needed to get more for the name.  At the time, I had another inside contact at a major whisky distillery that was pushing his company to make me a $3 million offer and I told Toofun about it. The next day, Toofun told me of a new $2 million offer from Whisky.de, and I knew that one was going to be a solid end user – but I still needed more. I knew that I was asking Toofun to turn down a lot of money in commission, but I told him he needed to put that aside and understand there was no difference between $10,000 and $10,000,000. It’s just a number. He said that he understood, and he had learned that in his acting class and would use that mindset going forward. 

Toofun told the buyer that we needed more than $3 million, and that there was another potential buyer at the same price. The buyer than came back with an offer at $3.1 million! That was a perfectly fair deal for me, and it was $100,000 more than the Vodka.com deal of 2006. I told Toofun to close the deal, but the buyer required an indefinite NDA (Non-Disclosure Agreement) on the transaction. There was no way I would accept a permanent NDA. These days, there are a lot of great .com deals that no one knows about, and this deal was going to be different. I told the buyer that, if there was an NDA, then there was no deal. I was willing to let the $3.1 million go. He offered that his countrymen wouldn’t like the fact that they were spending this kind of money, and I told

him that a name like Whisky.com not only made his market local, but global. The buyer eventually agreed to a two month NDA. Our lawyers drew up contracts, and the money was wired on January 2nd, 2014.