After vodka.com sold, i saw a flood of vodka names come on the market- do these names actually bring in sales, when you reg a variation of something?

Yes and No.

Mostly these will be newbies that think they can make a quick buck, but most do not sell. When I first started domaining I seen ZYJ.com sell on ebay for X,XXX. I then registered TheZYJ.com. This is a great example of what not to do. If it is a good vodka domain then sure, it may sell, but most are already taken and have been for years.

I've made thousands of dollars by seeing a .com sell for $10,000 and running it through a registrar. I seen that the .net was open so I registered it and sold it to the same person that bought the .com. I made around $2,000 off the deal. This doesn't work too often though.

www.whataredomains.com