Interesting case history. I was a bit late joining the internet community but was happy enough in 1997 to get a company name that also matched the .com and .co.uk equivalents. I then started looking for products I might easily sell with a good hope of repeat business. That basically meant specialist food and drink. I hunted through a whole string of generic food names before finding saucissons.com (the singular was already taken by the French major producer). OK, so it doesn't exactly roll off the tongue with an easy spelling like cheese or salmon but it looked like a good foot in the door. I had romantic visions of touring the Ardennes in a white van hunting out the best examples to bring home for online sale. It didn't work out that way (romantic dreams seldom do) so after a few years I let the domain lapse. Often wonder who made the best killing with some of those more obvious generics. Wonder if they've all made as good as whisky?
