Nacho,
To answer your question directly, I think that people in the business of domaining are still digesting the implications of .anyTLD (I know that I am for my off brand TLD names - I'm paying $100 renewals for .pro... uh, why?).
People see .Com, .Net and .Org (and in their respective countries [except the US] see their own country TLDs in advertising), so their brands are firmly entrenched.
I'm not sure I can recall a single ad with a .info name on air. Frangrance.Net I remember as well as a slew of .com names. I think that it is interesting they chose to go with the Frangrance.Net branding for their air commercials, because the actual site is Frangrancenet.com, but I digress. Update - Actually, it is Fragrance.net (still the same folks, and it underscores the value of having your typos if your domain is long - these folks are very savvy).
So, what is the value of a domain TLD du jour? As always, .com is king, .net and .org are the rest of the royal family and then there are the others. There was a reason vodka.com sold for what it sold for. My guess is that vodka.net would command a 6 figure price tag (after all I am told that those in the know seem to think a .net is 10-15% of a .com) to the right buyer.
That said, high 5 to low 6 figures might also make sense for whiskey.net - though being a longer named adult beverage, it might fall back to the 5 figures and it is also harder to spell than vodka... especially so if you have been consuming said products.
-Commerce
I'm surprised it didnt sell. I sold that name last year. I think 17k was just under the reserve so if the guy kept going a bit they would've had it..
Perhaps the bidder knew that.
-Commerce