60 Minutes - 04/06/2025: The War in Gaza, The Prisoners, Wood to Whiskey

Episode Date: April 7, 2025

Correspondent Scott Pelley reports on an American doctor who volunteers in Gaza, and from Doha where medical teams work to rehabilitate children injured in the war. Who are the men President Trump sent to a notorious maximum-security prison in El Salvador using a wartime law dating back to 1798?  The Trump administration says they are all violent gang members and terrorists. But after obtaining internal government documents, 60 Minutes could find no criminal records for most of the prisoners. Correspondent Cecilia Vega reports.  With a history spanning two thousand years and still playing a vital role in global commerce, the oak barrel, as correspondent Bill Whitaker discovers, is much more than just a container. Barrels are a vital ingredient, especially in the production of Bourbon Whiskey — giving it all of its distinctive color and much of its taste. Whitaker takes us inside the largest maker of wooden barrels to glimpse the magic and mystique of this essential tradition. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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The PC Insider's World Elite MasterCard, the card for living unlimited. Conditions apply to all benefits. Visit pcfinancial.ca for details. The war in Gaza is at a critical moment. A failed ceasefire, Israeli hostages still captive, and in Gaza's failing hospitals, volunteers fighting to save lives. I can't stop bombs. I can't rescue hostages. But I can stand next to you. I can live amongst

you. And it's not much, but it beats baring your head and hatred and violence and ignorance. Who did the U.S. government deport to El Salvador? 60 Minutes has been investigating the secretive operation that sent more than 200 men to a notorious Salvadoran prison, despite many not having criminal records. Our client, who was in the middle of seeking asylum, just disappeared. One day he was there, and the next day we're supposed to have court, and he wasn't brought to court. You use the word disappeared. Tonight, we explore the fascinating life of the whiskey barrel, an ancient product that still plays a vital role in global commerce.

Millions of new oak barrels are built in America every year, fired up and then filled with what will become bourbon through years of aging as the wood delivers magic to the whiskey. I'm Leslie Stahl. I'm Bill Whitaker. I'm Anderson Cooper. I'm Sharon Alfonsi. I'm John Wertheim. I'm Cecilia Vega.

I'm Scott Pelley. Those stories and more tonight on 60 Minutes. drink. And of course, you can rest assured that with Public Mobile's 5G subscription phone plans, you'll pay the same thing every month. With all of the mysteries that life has to offer, a few certainties can really go a long way. Subscribe today for the peace of mind you've been searching for. Public Mobile, different is calling. Meet Tim's new Oreo Mocha Ice Caps with Oreo in every sip. Perfect for listening to the A-side, or B-side, or Bull-side. Order yours on the Tim's app today at participating restaurants in Canada for a limited time. Dr. Samer Attar is an orthopedic surgeon in Chicago, a professor of surgery at Northwestern,

and recently among the brave volunteers fighting for life in the war in Gaza. Gaza is 25 miles long and home to two million Palestinians, descendants of those displaced in the 1948 creation of Israel. Gaza is ruled by a terrorist group called Hamas, and in 2023, Hamas attacked Israel, an atrocity that Israel says killed 1,200 civilians, including 40 children, and captured 251. Israel's war to free its hostages and defeat Hamas has killed an estimated 50,000 Palestinians, 15,000 of them children, according to the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry. The UN says 92 percent of Gaza housing has been damaged. Last week on 60 Minutes, Leslie Stahl reported on the trauma and torture suffered by Israeli hostages. Tonight, we have the story of the desperate fight to save Gaza's civilians through the charity of nations

and the mercy of volunteers like Samer Attar. That's Dr. Attar, battling a stalled heart. The patient is a paramedic. An explosion near his ambulance killed his partner. But it's not just the paramedics. Health care itself is dying in Gaza. With 33 hospitals damaged and the rest starved of supplies. Imagine 50 people showing up all at once.

And 15 of them are dead on arrival. And they're all trying to get into the emergency room, and there's no place to step. And there's not enough beds, so you're working and resuscitating and operating on patients on floors smeared with dirt and blood and you'd see just little kids shredded and twisted their insides falling out, dismembered, missing arms and legs. I remember one little girl just pounding her fists on the floor, just refusing to believe that her mom was dead, but they had to just forcefully pull her away to make room for incoming wounded because the pace of the wounded just doesn't stop. They keep coming. When these patients come into the emergency room,

what is it that you don't have? There's no sterility. Anesthesia is kind of a luxury sometimes. We had two kids come in, two young kids involved in an explosion. One was missing skin over half of his body. The other one, we did an missing skin over half of his body. The other one, we did an emergency amputation of his leg. Both could have been saved. They were both brothers, but I remember the anesthesia doctor on the phone begging the blood bank for blood.

And there's only so much blood to give. And the blood bank said, sorry, we don't have any more to give you. We just can't give you any more." And it was a Palestinian doctor. He collapsed to the ground crying and he said he can't take it anymore because he's lost so many kids for something as simple as a blood transfusion. And that kid just, we just sat back and helplessly watched him die on the operating room table. And his brother was the same story. He could have been saved, but we didn't have blood. And he died the next day. When anesthesia is a luxury, what do you do? You say you're sorry a lot.

It's not something you ever really wanna be involved in. This is a gentleman that showed up with an explosive injury to his hand. Sam Rattar is 49. His parents were Syrian doctors who immigrated to the U.S. in the 60s. How many trips in does this make for you? This is number four. We met Dr. Attar in 2016 as he volunteered in the Syrian war.

He's also worked in Ukraine. This was his fifth mission to Gaza on rotations that last two or three weeks. The bombs land so close, you feel the hospital shaking. At times, the fighting and conflict is so intense, you feel like the hospital is going to times the fighting and conflict is so intense you feel like the hospital is going to collapse on top of you. And there have been instances of hospitals

that were attacked, that were invaded. So there's really no safe space. Gaza medical facilities and ambulances have been attacked 670 times, according to the UN. When our troops open this closet here... But the Israeli military says Hamas uses hospitals for shelter and arsenals. Dr. Attar has worked in five Gaza hospitals. The Israelis would tell you that they are attacking these facilities when they do because Hamas is using them as command and control centers. I just saw doctors and nurses and patients. I didn't see any tunnels.

I didn't see any uniformed Hamas soldiers. I didn't see any hostages. If I did, I would have said and done something about it. But I didn't see any hostages. If I did, I would have said and done something about it. But I didn't. As for the paramedic we saw earlier, Dr. Attar did restart his heart, but he doesn't know if the man lived. The doctor can't keep up with so many wounded. It occurs to me that you have all of these patients in your memory, and you never find out what happened to them. Yeah, I remember... I remember all of them.

A few of his patients are evacuated. Israel has permitted a total of about 7,000 through its blockade. More than 300 children were medevaced by the Gulf State of Qatar in an act of charity that saw the patients escape the poorest place on earth for one of the richest. Qatar's $8 billion Sidra Hospital opened a ward for the Gaza children. Dr. Mansour Ali is head of surgery. How important was it to some of these patients to get out of Gaza? Some of these patients to get out of Gaza? Some of these patients are in a life-and-death situation

because if they stayed there, they would have died from complications of their injuries, from wound infection and septic shocks and things. They could have died. One of those saved is two-year-old Sanad. Sanad's grandmother, Marwa al-Arabi, told us that their neighborhood was bombed one year ago. Sanad's face and tongue were torn apart. He lost one arm. Eleven people were killed, she told us, including my uncle, my brother-in-law, and my daughter's children.

All my children were injured. The first time that you saw Sanad after he was injured, what did you see? I was hysterical. The sight was so horrifying. I didn't think he would survive. I thought he was taking his last breath. Sanad and the others have been recovering in Qatar about a year. How many of you lost your home? Almost all of you. How many of you lost one of your parents? This girl suffered a traumatic head injury repaired with a plate in her skull.

They bombed my grandfather's house, she told us. I was about to leave the house when a piece of shrapnel hit my head. Two of my brothers were killed, along with my grandfather and grandmother. Fifteen-year-old Lama told us that she was unconscious in a Gaza hospital for a week. I didn't know what had happened, she said. I learned my leg was amputated. It was a month before I learned that my sister and brother had been killed. Many of the children are patients of Dr. Lisa Thornton, chief of pediatric rehabilitation at Sidra. Chief of Pediatric Rehabilitation at CIDRA. This was my first time ever having any experience with war trauma. I'm from Chicago. I've seen a lot of trauma, a lot of violent trauma, but I had never seen anything like this.

What can you do to rehabilitate them? Our goal is to get them back to childhood. And really, you know, the primary occupation of childhood is play. So we want to be able to get these kids back to being able to play. But if you have a child with multiple amputations, how can you achieve that? First of all, we're blessed that children are resilient, right? So if they're not in pain and they can move, they often figure it out.

I had one young man who, sadly, both of his arms were blown off, so he had amputations here at the shoulders. And he was 9 years old, and within a few weeks, he was using his feet. What has he been able to do with his feet? Well, he can feed himself. He can write a little bit because you can hold a pen with your toes. It's pretty amazing.

This is that young man steering a scooter and remembering the joy of play. What gives you hope? Well, the kids, you know, the children give me hope. I mean, they're playful and they're energetic and they're surviving. I believe that the human spirit is incredible. And the spirit of children is more than any of us have as adults. For every child that is evacuated from Gaza, how many are left behind who need that kind of care? Thousands. Thousands. Those were the patients in the mind of Samar Attar when we met in Qatar.

He told us many that he recalls were not wounded at all, but starving because of the blockade. I remember a kid called Karim. He was suffering from significant malnutrition. There just wasn't enough food and water where his mom was at, and he was in the ICU. And his mom asked me to come meet him. And I started talking to her and then the nurses told me that Karim had been dead for over an hour. Mom just refused to let the nurses take away his body. And she kept showing me videos of what he used to look like

and how he was so playful and how he was so kind. And she just couldn't believe that because they didn't have enough food and water, he didn't make it. Israel's prime minister has said his country ensures humanitarian assistance reaches those in need. But the UN says Gaza is at risk of famine and two million are homeless. Thousands have protested in Gaza, calling for the end of the Hamas regime. There's a lot of suffering. Yeah, I can't stop bombs. I can't rescue hostages.

I can't solve this crisis. I can't repair the world. But I can stand next to you. I can live amongst you, I can share your grief, I can feel your fear, I can serve your community, I can bear witness to your suffering, and then just make some noise about it. And it's not much, but it beats baring your head and hatred and violence and ignorance. This violence began with the attack on Israel. In a two-month ceasefire earlier this year, many Israeli hostages were released,

but Israel believes 24 living hostages remain. In our story last week, former hostages told Leslie Stahl of torture. Yarden Bibas spoke of Hamas terrorists murdering his wife and two children in cold blood. Now, Israel is pressing its military campaign and has cut off nearly all food and humanitarian aid. In the 19th month of suffering, there is no end in sight. Hit pause on whatever you're listening to and hit play on your next adventure. Stay three nights this summer at Best Western

and get $50 off a future stay. Life's a trip. Make the most of it at Best Western. Visit bestwestern.com for complete terms and conditions. Best Western and get $50 off a future stay. Life's a trip. Make the most of it at Best Western. Visit bestwestern.com for complete terms and conditions. Wendy's most important deal of the day has a fresh lineup. Pick any two breakfast items for $4. New four-piece French toast sticks, bacon or sausage wrap, biscuit or English muffin sandwiches, small hot coffee, and more. Limited time only at participating Wendy's taxes extra. Three weeks ago, 238 Venezuelan migrants were flown from Texas to a maximum security prison in El Salvador. That country's president offered to take them, and the Trump administration used

a law not invoked since World War II to send them, claiming they are all terrorists and violent gang members. The government has released very little information about the men, but through internal government documents, we've obtained a list of their identities and found that an overwhelming majority have no apparent criminal convictions or even criminal charges. They are now prisoners. Among them, a makeup artist, a soccer player, and a food delivery driver, being held in a place so harsh that El Salvador's justice minister once said the only way out is in a coffin. The shackled men were forced to lower their heads and bodies as they were unloaded from buses and taken to El Salvador's mega-prison known as the Terrorism Confinement Center, or SECOT.

Andri Hernandez-Romero was among them. Andri is a 31-year-old Venezuelan. He's a makeup artist. He is a gay man. He loves to do theater. He was part of a theater troupe in his hometown. Lindsay Toslowski, Andri's attorney, says he does not have a criminal record in the United States or Venezuela. She says he left his

home country last year because he was targeted for being gay and for his political views. Last May, Andri made the long trek north through the Darien Gap to Mexico, where he eventually got an appointment to seek asylum in the United States. At a legal border crossing near San Diego, he was taken into custody while his case was processed. Did he have a strong asylum case? We believe he did have a strong asylum case. He had also done a credible fear interview, which is the very first part of seeking asylum in the

United States. And the government had found that his threats against him were credible and that he had a real probability of winning an asylum claim. But last month, Andri did not appear for a court hearing. Our client, who was in the middle of seeking asylum, just disappeared. One day he was there, and the next day we're supposed to have court and he wasn't brought to court. You use the word disappeared. Yeah, I use that word because that's what happened. But Andri did appear in photos taken by Time magazine photographer Philip Holsinger, who was there when the Venezuelans arrived at Secote. Holsinger told

us he heard a young man say, I'm not a gang member, I'm gay, I'm a stylist. And then he cried for his mother as he was slapped and had his head shaved. By comparing Holsinger's photographs to photos of Andri's tattoos taken by the government, we were able to confirm that this is Andri. His lawyer, who was representing him pro bono, had never seen these photos before. It's horrifying to see someone who we've met and know as a sweet, funny artist in the most horrible conditions I could imagine. You fear for Andres' safety in there? Absolutely. We have grave concerns about whether he can survive.

In October, Tom Homan, who is now the White House border czar, told 60 Minutes the Trump administration's mass deportation plan would start by removing the worst of the worst. We're going to prioritize those with convictions. We're going to prioritize that security threats. We have to do that. You got to get the worst first. But are they the worst? The Trump administration has yet to release the identities of the Venezuelan men it sent to El Salvador last month. We obtained internal government documents listing their names and any known criminal information. We cross-reference that with domestic and international court filings, news reports,

and arrest records whenever we could find them. At least 22 percent of the men on the list have criminal records here in the United States or abroad. The vast majority are for nonviolent offenses like theft, shoplifting, and trespassing. About a dozen are accused of murder, rape, assault, and kidnapping. For 3% of those deported, it is unclear whether a criminal record exists. But we could not find criminal records for 75% of the Venezuelans, 179 men, now sitting in prison. In response to our findings, a Department of Homeland Security spokeswoman said many of those without criminal records, quote, are actually terrorists, human rights abusers,

gangsters, and more. They just don't have a rap sheet in the U.S. Border Czar Tom Homan said immigration agents spent hours conducting rigorous checks on each of the men to confirm they are members of Tren de Aragua, a Venezuelan gang President Trump campaigned on eradicating. To expedite removals of the Tren de Aragua savage gangs, I will invoke the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to target and dismantle every migrant criminal network operating on American soil. But in Andri's case, the only evidence the government presented in immigration court were these pictures of his tattoos. Crowns, which immigration authorities say can be a symbol of Trender Agua. These are tattoos that not only have a plausible explanation

because he is someone who worked in the beauty pageant industry, but also the crowns themselves were on top of the names of his parents. The most possible explanation for that are that his mom and dad are his king and queen. Could it be possible that there is something that perhaps the government knows that you don't? I don't think that that is possible. But if it was possible that they had some information, they should follow the Constitution, present that information, give us the ability to reply to it.

A Department of Homeland Security spokeswoman said on social media that its intelligence assessments go well beyond just gang affiliate tattoos. She said Andri's own social media indicates he is a member of Tren de Aragua. We went back a decade and could only find photos like these. Tattoos and social media were also used to link another Venezuelan migrant, Herce Reyes Barrios, to the Trendearagua gang. Immigration court documents include this Facebook post from 14 years ago, showing him flashing what officers said was a gang sign. His girlfriend told us it was all about rock and roll.

Immigration agents also flagged Herce's crown tattoo as a gang symbol, but they did not mention the crown is above a soccer ball. Herce was a soccer player in Venezuela. His lawyer says the tattoo honors his favorite team, Real Madrid, whose logo includes a crown. Organized crime analysts told us members of the Salvadoran MS-13 gang can often be identified by signature tattoos. But Tren de Aragua is different. Are tattoos a reliable indicator of membership in Tren de Aragua? No. Expert after expert tells us tattoos are not a reliable indicator of whether you're part of this particular gang. Legal Ernt, an attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union, is leading the legal challenge against the Trump administration's efforts to send migrants to Sukkot.

There are a lot of people who might hear what you're saying and say, these people don't have papers, they should be deported. To that you say what? If they are here illegally and don't have a right to stay, they can be deported back to their home country. If they've committed crimes, they can be prosecuted and perhaps spend many, many years in a U.S. prison. It's not a matter of can these individuals be punished. It's a matter of how the government is going to go about doing it.

Once we start using wartime authority with no oversight, anything is possible. Anybody can be picked up. Last month, President Trump did what he had promised on the campaign trail. He invoked a 1798 law called the Alien Enemies Act, which allows the president to remove non-citizens without immigration hearings during times of war or invasion. Every administration back to 1798 has understood this is wartime authority to be used when the United States is at war with a foreign government. The administration is saying, not only are we going to use it against a criminal organization, but you, the courts, have no role. You cannot tell us that we're violating the law or stop us. Does the U.S. even have the legal right to send

someone who's been deported from its country to a foreign prison? The United States does not have that right. You know, I want to go back to World War II, the last time that any president used this authority. We send people back to their home country. the last time that any president used this authority. We send people back to their home country. We didn't send them to a foreign prison. Even during World War II, Germans had the right to contest their designation under the Alien Enemies Act. As one of the judges pointed out in the appeals court, Nazis had more process than we're giving to these Venezuelan men. Before the three planes arrived in El Salvador, U.S. District Judge James Boasberg ordered the

Trump administration to turn them around. Flight tracking data shows two planes were in the air at the time, and one was about to take off from Texas. Instead of turning around, all the planes made a stop at a military base in Honduras. And then, despite Judge Boasberg's verbal and written orders, the planes all flew to El Salvador. Since then, the U.S. government has disclosed very few details about the operation. CBS News published the only list of all 238 deportees. The government is refusing to answer almost every question from the court. Based on what grounds?

Well, now they've invoked what's called the state secrets privilege. They are saying they can't even confirm details about the planes. We asked a Department of Homeland Security spokeswoman what evidence the government has, besides tattoos and social media posts, linking people like Andri and Herce to Tren de Aragua. She cited state secrets and ongoing litigation as the reasons DHS cannot comment on these individual allegations. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, who visited Secot last month, declined our request for an interview.

At the prison, she recorded this video. She was standing in front of a cell packed with Salvadoran gang members, not Venezuelans. But know that this facility is one of the tools in our toolkit that we will use if you commit crimes against the American people. The Trump administration is paying El Salvador President Nayib Bukele's government $6 million to house prisoners it sends to Secot. Lawyers and family members of the Venezuelans told us they've had no contact with the men since they arrived. Do you have any idea how long he might be there? We have no idea.

Alirio Antonio Fuenmayor's younger brother, Alirio Guillermo, was picked up by immigration agents while working as a food delivery driver in Utah. Though he had no criminal record, he was sent to El Salvador last month. He is an innocent person. He has not committed any crime. And he's in a maximum security prison. The ACLU's League Alert has spent decades challenging immigration policies of Democratic and Republican administrations.

But on the fate of the Venezuelan men? What would you say to these families who are terrified right now about their relatives currently sitting in this prison in El Salvador. Will they ever see them again? I hope so, but, you know, there's a real danger that they remain there. You're saying that there are Venezuelans who very well may have no gang ties

that are right now in one of the hardest of hardcore prisons in the world that may never get out. They may never see the light of day again. That's what I'm saying. What's better than a well-marbled ribeye sizzling on the barbecue? A well-marbled ribeye sizzling on the barbecue that was carefully selected by an Instacart shopper and delivered to your door. A well-marbled ribeye you ordered without even leaving the kiddie pool. Whatever groceries your summer calls for, Instacart has you covered. Download the Instacart app and enjoy $0 delivery fees on your first three orders. Service fees, exclusions, and terms apply. Instacart. Groceries that over-deliver.

If someone asked you to name a product that was first made 2,000 years ago, still looks and works as it always has, and still plays a vital role in global commerce, would you be stumped? It turns out the answer is the simple wooden barrel. Almost always made of oak, barrels have a long and fascinating history. First built and used by the Celts and Romans, they have held nearly every commodity over the centuries. Metal and plastic and cardboard long ago eclipsed barrels for the shipment of most items, but when it comes to wine and whiskey, especially bourbon whiskey, the oak barrel still reigns, not just as a container, but for the magic

that the wood gives the whiskey. We were speaking with someone, and they called a whiskey barrel a breathing time machine. I love that. Brad Boswell is the CEO of Independent Stave, the largest maker of wooden barrels in the world. Brad's great-grandfather founded the company in 1912 in Missouri. It now has operations worldwide. We met him in Kentucky.

Most of our barrels would have useful lives of 50 plus years. 50 plus years? 50 plus years, yeah. Like I'll go to different places and look at barrels at distilleries or wineries around the world, and I can see barrels that my grandfather made, you know, in the 1960s.

I still see them. A barrel begins as a log from a white oak tree, fed into what's known as a stave mill, where it's cut into ever smaller pieces, staves, which are then arranged in huge Jenga-style stacks and seasoned outdoors for three to six months before heading to a nearby cooperage where the barrels are built. There's no nails that will go here, no glue.

Brad Boswell's newest cooperage produces thousands of barrels every day. How many of these go into a typical barrel? Typically between 28 and 32 staves per barrel. After a barrel is raised, mostly by hand, it travels through a host of other steps and checks to make it ready to begin its life, including being toasted and then charred on the inside. Most of the barrels we make today are bespoke. We know exactly who this barrel is going to, which is stellar. How about that? The demand for such a huge volume of barrels can be attributed mainly to one thing, bourbon. President Franklin Roosevelt, in the 30s, became more specific about what bourbon and whiskey should be.

And at that time, he said, you know, bourbon should be in new, charred oak barrels. So if it's not in one of these barrels, it's not bourbon. That's correct. Bourbon has to be aged in a new, charred oak container. That rule, plus booming consumer demand for bourbon starting in the early 2000s, has been very good for the barrel business. 3.2 million new barrels were filled with whiskey last year in Kentucky alone. And more than 14 million full barrels are aging in the state in massive warehouses known as rickhouses. How many barrels are in this rickhouse?

23,500 on six floors. Dan Calloway is the master blender for Bardstown Bourbon, a young but fast-growing Kentucky distillery. To make a great whiskey, you have to start with a great distillate, a clear spirit, but then the magic comes from the barrel. The fact that it's new charred oak, it's just incredible. So the barrel is crucial to your product? Absolutely. Depending who you talk to, some would say 50% of the flavor, maybe up to 70, 80% of the characters derived from that barrel. The rest of the flavor comes from what's known as the mash bill, grains like corn and wheat and rye that are mixed with water and fermented with yeast.

Despite bourbon having recently been threatened or hit with tariffs by other countries in retaliation for President Trump's tariffs, Bardstown's huge distillery is still producing enough new whiskey to fill more than 5,000 barrels a week. You take the clear liquid, which is basically what people call moonshine, goes through this process and comes out as this beautiful brown, tasty liquid here. How does that happen? Yeah, so I always compare it to a seesaw, okay? So when it comes off the still, moonshine, like you said, it's a seesaw that's out of balance. But every year that goes by of the barrel aging, the seesaw comes into balance. And what the barrel is bringing

is caramel, vanilla, baking spice, and all this rich beautiful color. How can solid oak produce all those flavors and spices? Back where the barrels are built, Brad Boswell gave us a vivid lesson with a barrel that had just been toasted, a process that brings sugars in the wood to the surface. Smell that. Smell it. I mean... That does smell delicious. It's incredible. It really does. It's amazing.

There's a reason why people still use oak barrels 2,000 years later. So when I'm sipping the bourbon, I'm sipping this barrel. That's right. Absolutely. After toasting, we and the barrels move to the visually stunning char oven. So we'll see this barrel coming through right here. Oh, look at that. Yeah, so actually the inside of the barrel is on fire. So you just light the barrel on fire?

Yep, we light the barrel on fire. And that teases out more and more of the flavors, and we call that an alligator char. Because the inside of the barrel actually looks like kind of an alligator's back. And you can see... We could see that blistering inside a newly charred barrel pulled off the line. I mean, people expect this to smell like a campfire. It smells more like a confectionery product. It does. I can smell the caramel and the vanilla.

Yeah. What that barrel can give to the whiskey is evident in these glasses. So this is the same exact distillate that came off the still at the exact same time, went into a barrel four years later, and this we just kept in a glass bottle. It's also apparent in the taste. First, the white lightning. Wow, that gives a punch. Yes, it does. It does.

And then, the barrel-aged bourbon. Oh, big difference. Huge difference. Smooth. Oh, smooth. Some of that smooth comes from temperature swings in the rickhouses, according to Bardstown Bourbon's Dan Calloway. We want those swings. When it, you know, when it gets really hot, things expand, lets the liquid in. When it gets cold, it contracts. And it's that natural progression of in,-out that ages the bourbon so beautifully as the liquid interacts with the wood.

As those barrels are aging whiskey for four, five, or six years, some savvy investors have figured out there's money to be made. Whiskey is an interesting asset in the sense that as it ages, it becomes more valuable. Chris Heller is co-founder of California-based Cordiera Investment Partners. So explain to me how this works. You go up to a distiller and say, I want to buy those barrels filled with what will eventually become bourbon. So that is exactly right. Heller and his partners buy thousands of newly filled barrels from distillers, pay to store them as the whiskey ages,

then sell them to craft bourbon brands. What are your starting costs? Somewhere in the $600 to $1,000 range is sort of the price of what's called a new fill barrel of whiskey. At the end, what do you sell it for? It can be anywhere from $2,000 to $4,000 by the end. That's a pretty good return on your investment. We really find it an interesting and compelling investment area.

Nice way to say it, huh? Whoever makes it, owns it, or ages it, when bourbon is emptied from a barrel after five or six years, that barrel's life is just beginning, and it's likely to travel the world. It's really interesting that when the bourbon barrel is freshly dumped, there's still around two gallons of actually bourbon trapped in that wood. That has just seeped into the wood. That's seeped into the wood. So then a lot of the secondary users actually look forward to putting their product into

the barrel again for four, six, ten, a lot of scotches, 12 years, 18 years. And it can pick up that American bourbon taste. Absolutely, and it pulls out that sweet bourbon. That sweet taste in the wood makes used bourbon barrels very hot commodities. We really view our role in the industry as moving as many barrels from the original source to the next stopping point as fast as possible. Jess and Ben Lowski own Midwest Barrels. Their Kentucky warehouse is stacked to the rafters with empty barrels.

So we're the next stop for the second use of that barrel. So in Kentucky here, we bring in barrels from all the major distilleries and then send them back out. These barrels will be shipped out and then refilled with something else? Correct, yeah. So the idea is to get these barrels in here and out and then refilled with something else. Correct, yeah. So the idea is to get these barrels in here and out of here as quickly as possible. So we'll turn over this entire warehouse every two to three weeks. Probably 70 to 80 percent of our business is overseas. It started as a hobby. While Ben was finishing his PhD in Nebraska, he began buying barrels and selling them to local craft breweries. You said that a few barrels were a big order in the beginning.

Yeah. What's a big order today? 10,000. 10,000? Yeah, yeah. India and China and Scotland and Ireland are by far four biggest markets. The Kentucky Distillers Association says that the state exported more than $300 million worth of used barrels last year just to Scotland, where they'll be used to age Scotch whiskey

for up to 40 years. Could you just tick off for me the different spirits that these barrels will hold. They start with bourbon, Tennessee whiskey, scotch whiskey, tequila, rum, Pisco made in Peru, Cachaça made in Brazil will use these barrels. Beer.

Beer uses them. These barrels for sure end up in China. A lot of these barrels end up in Japan. It's everywhere. Beautiful. Now, master blenders like Bardstown's Dan Callaway... This will be cast strength, direct from the barrel. ...are bringing barrels back to Kentucky

to do special finishes for their whiskeys. So this is the first of its kind. It is an American whiskey finished in Indian whiskey barrels. Indian whiskey is traditionally aged in a bourbon barrel. So the physical barrel has left Kentucky, gone to Bangalore, filled with barley, and then sent back here. Calloway finished this whiskey in those barrels for 17 months. My God, that's good.

Yeah. Dan Calloway's newest creation, called Cathedral, may be his most miraculous yet. We sourced wood in the Loire Valley, the Burset Forest, and this plot, this lot in the forest was selected to repair Notre Dame after the fires. So most of the wood went there. We were fortunate to obtain six barrels made from that wood. And we picked our best stocks of Kentucky bourbon up to 19 years old, filled the barrels. They aged for 14 months.

You know how wild that is? Yeah. That the beams that restored Notre Dame come from the same forest as your casks. The same lot. That's a story to tell. Absolutely. And a whiskey to taste.

Ah, it's nice. Now, the last minute of 60 Minutes. Next week on 60 Minutes, we return to DeepMind, Google's laboratory for artificial intelligence where robots are learning to reason. Hey robot, put the blocks whose color is the combination of yellow and blue into the matching color ball. The combination of yellow and blue is green. And it figured that out. It's reasoning. Definitely, yes. I'm Scott Pelley. That story and more next week on another edition of 60 Minutes.