It's incredibly common. If you are a CTO at a software company, you are getting multiple boxes of swag or gifts a week. If you check your employee handbook, it may even specify what kinds of gifts you can accept.
Generally can't do it with government employees. But marketing to government is a whole other thing.
It's much worse on the PR side of the house. Journalists and bloggers are absolute grifters.
2 is unfortunately still pretty common. Together with let's make friend with the CTO and invite him to a restaurant and pay the large wine and cocktail bill. Note that this is actually forbidden in many places like State universities and some companies (usually as they grow larger).
And is illegal in many countries, including Sweden. If you want to send for example a Christmas present to one of the customers, it can’t cost more than something like $30, and there are similarly limitations on what is considered a reasonable business lunch.
Did you mean:
1) A whiskey company sending a bottle of their whiskey?
or
2) (e.g.) "Microsoft" sending a bottle of whiskey?
The second sounds unethical and it would shock me to know this is common.