60 Minutes - 5/3/2015: The Lesson of War, All-American, Whisky Island

Episode Date: May 4, 2015

Scott Pelley explores the effects of war on children; then, Morley Safer profiles "patriotic philanthropist" David Rubenstein; and, Steve Kroft finishes the late Bob Simon's report about the Scottish island of Islay. 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

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. Grocer $0 delivery fees on your first three orders. Service fees, exclusions, and terms apply. Instacart, groceries that over-deliver. The first boy to die was wrapped in the grief of Israel. In June, the night his mother sat up worrying, 16-year-old Naftali Frankel and two friends were kidnapped and later shot by Palestinian terrorists.

The next day, Israeli terrorists kidnapped a Palestinian boy, same age. Mohammed Abu Qadir was burned alive. Within days, it was war. And not in 50 years were so many children about to die in the Holy Land. This is inside the Washington Monument, the moment an earthquake struck Washington, D.C. in 2011. One of the nation's most treasured memorials, now head to close. It would take a superman to put it back together again, but in fact, it was Clark Kent in a suit and tie, armed with just a blackberry and a passion for American history.

It's a shorter version of it. He's David Rubenstein, and he's spent hundreds of millions of his own fortune to help save the monument and some of the other great symbols of American democracy. Sixty Minutes is constantly on the lookout for places we've never been before. So when our late colleague Bob Simon heard about a magical place in the Hebrides Islands off the coast of Scotland known for making some of the great whiskeys in the world, well, the story spoke to him. Cheers. We get literally thousands upon thousands

of single malt tourists coming here. They come from all over the world just to set foot on Ireland. To study it. No, to drink it. I'm Steve Croft. I'm Leslie Stahl. I'm Morley Safer. I'm Bill Whitft. I'm Leslie Stahl. I'm Morley Safer.

I'm Bill Whitaker. I'm Scott Pelley. Those stories tonight on 60 Minutes. You've got unlimited access to music, but time? Now that's limited. The PC Insider's World's Elite MasterCard gets you unlimited PC Optima points, free grocery delivery, and time back for what matters. Save time and earn $1,100 in average value each year. The PC Insider's World's Elite MasterCard. The card for living unlimited. Conditions apply to all benefits.

Visit pcfinancial.ca for details. Value is for illustrative purposes only. The war began with the murders of three teenage boys. By the time it was over, more than 500 children were dead. For 50 days this past summer, Israel and the Palestinians of Gaza fought their bloodiest war since 1967, and some of the images of the battle in our story tonight are hard to watch. Where the decades of suffering go from here depends not so much on a thousand threads of

tangled talks, but on one question that comes before all others. Can peace be taught to children who have learned only the lesson of war. The first boy to die was wrapped in the grief of Israel. In June, the night his mother sat up worrying, 16-year-old Naftali Frankel and two friends were kidnapped and later shot by Palestinian terrorists. Rochelle Frankel said the eulogy at a national service. The eulogy was turning to my son and talking to him and to the people that were searching so hard

and that were praying so hard and recognizing that we're going to live on with other blessings we have in our lives and that this is something we'll keep inside of us. It's how special he was to us. The next day, Israeli terrorists kidnapped a Palestinian boy, same age. Mohammed Abu Qadir was burned alive. Within days, it was war. And not in 50 years were so many children about to die in the Holy Land. Palestinian rockets, plentiful but unguided, punched wildly into Israel,

inflicting fear but limited damage. Israel struck Gaza with digital domination, blasting neighborhoods into seismic collapse. We flew a drone over part of Gaza to comprehend the scale. The Palestinian Health Ministry says civilian deaths in Gaza came to 1,492. Six civilians were killed in Israel during the battle. Israel lost one child. Gaza lost more than 500.

If you look at the average 10-year-old child in Gaza today, they've been through now three large-scale conflicts, and it's a pervasive climate of fear of the unknown of what's going to happen next. Scott Anderson cares for a quarter million children in Gaza in 252 schools. After 21 years in the U.S. Army, he became deputy director of the U.N. Relief and Works Agency, which has sustained Gaza with schools, homes, jobs, and food for seven decades. What is it like to be a child in Gaza? Very difficult. They have no idea what it's like to have electricity 24 hours a day. They have no idea what it's like to have heating all the time. People have lost their family members.

Their homes have been destroyed. Schools have been destroyed. That takes a toll on children. During the war, his classrooms became kitchens and shelters for more than half a million Gazans. Some of the U.N. schools were attacked. And this past Monday, a U.N. investigation found that Israel hit seven schools, killing 44 people. But the UN also blamed Palestinian militants for hiding weapons in three vacant UN schools that were not hit. This conflict is probably the most widely talked about, widely written about, and least understood conflict in history. This history begins in 1947, when refugees from Israel's creation compressed into a strip

32 miles by seven. In 2006, Gazans elected a government led by Hamas, which the U.S. says is a terrorist group. Israel responded by sealing the borders and bankrupting Gaza's economy. Hamas burrowed tunnels under the blockade for trade and terror. This summer, Hamas attacked Israel to lift the blockade, and Israel invaded Gaza to destroy the tunnels. Sixty-six Israeli soldiers were killed, but in the end, as usual, nothing really changed. In Israel, air raid sirens are as familiar to children as the lunch bell. In Gaza, a new generation is rising on the ruin of the last, and neither child knows the other.

Does it seem strange that I would work in Gaza and in Israel, too? Yeah. Yeah. Dr. Jim Gordon is an American psychiatrist working both sides. He's a professor at Georgetown in Washington and director of the Center for Mind-Body Medicine. These Israeli kids spent the war scrambling for shelter. They can't or won't talk about it, but Dr. Gordon has another way in. Draw yourself with your biggest problem, whatever that means to you.

Okay, do you understand? They come in often frozen, but then they do the drawing, and the drawing is of a destroyed house, of bloody bodies in the street. Only a few Hamas rockets were lethal, but 3,000 were launched. And in Israel today, their ark, on paper, hits targets of the imagination. A home destroyed, the wounded in an ambulance. Rochelle Frankel's six surviving children were all within range. Anybody that lives under missiles lives in terror.

If you know you're five seconds away from needing to choose which child to lie over to protect or to grab to the shelter, you can't imagine what kind of life it is. For these children, it's as if the bombs were still falling now. So they're just as anxious, they're just as likely to be aggressive, they're just as fearful and withdrawn, and the parts of the brain that are concerned with thoughtful decision-making, with compassion for others, are shut down. So you're just like a scared animal in that state. One scene these kids can't picture is Dr. Gordon just five miles away in Gaza.

The kids in Gaza are wearing down the same red crayons. Azar Jendia, nine years old, shared her pictures with us. This is the building where my father was bombed. It collapsed on my father and two uncles. Half of my father's head was gone. Show me the next picture. This is you. This is me. I drew myself inside a grave, a martyr next to my father.

And this is a coffin that you're in? Yes. They wished if only I had died, then the family would have been together, then we would have all been together. And they do wonder, and that's one of the things that our groups help them find out, is why am I here? Why was I spared? Three days a week, week after week, they draw, talk, draw again. After sketching their problem, they picture a solution. This came from a nine-year-old boy. The solution to this pain and this loss is that he wants himself to become a martyr, a suicide bomber. And so what we see here is a suicide belt, and you see it around his waist.

Who was he going to bomb? Going to bomb Israelis. Going to bomb the people who killed his father. That answer to what do you want to be when you grow up may be fatal to the future because of the inescapable demographics arising on every apocalyptic playground. That's the thing that really gets you about Gaza is the enormous number of children in the neighborhoods.

About 2 million people live in Gaza, and it turns out about half of them are under the age of 18. A local university did a survey after the war and found that 20 percent of the kids witnessed a death in their family, 35 percent saw destruction at or near their home, and 40 percent are suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. We found these children in the remains of their home. They're the grandchildren of Ahmed Karim Outa. The loss of his life's work has broken even his voice.

Before the blockade, Outa was a successful contractor. He built this home in the Arab way to hold all of his generations. His five sons lived here with their families. Fifty relatives in all fled before the crosshairs settled and a missile vaulted from a helicopter. He's saying even the animals have better lives. Our suffering is worse. Can we not have a home to live in? What is it like for the children to be living here? He told us things are worse after the war than during the war. They wake up in the middle of the night horrified.

We don't know what's wrong with them, but we try to calm them down. We put all the drawings down here. Dr. Gordon told us with enough time, about 80% can see beyond war. Azhar, who colored herself dead, came through the therapy with a dream. My wish is to become a heart doctor because after the war, a lot of people had heart problems, so I want to treat them. It looks like there are many people who need your help. Yes. How did you start to feel better? How did you get from the first picture to the last picture? The doctors helped me change, helped with my problems, and helped get the sadness out of my heart. We don't want you to have the wrong idea

about Gaza. While many neighborhoods were ground to powder, much of Gaza City is alive again, and a recent poll shows that Hamas is still favored by a slim majority. Scott Anderson's UN schools, for the most part, have returned to teaching. What are the needs here right now? I mean, the number one need is to find a way to lift the blockade and restore economic opportunity here in Gaza. What's at stake? Future is at stake.

There's been a lot of militant activity in Gaza since I've been here, a lot of rockets being fired, a lot of younger men joining the factions. My personal opinion is that's more because of lack of opportunity than any great desire to fight and die. If they had jobs, if they had stability, if they had families, I think they're less likely to engage in that kind of activity. But with unemployment in nearly 50% of the population in Gaza, unfortunately the factions are the ones that pay. One of the things that you said during the war was that maybe we can teach our children that we want to live in peace. How do you go about doing that?

I have no easy answer for that. My children, their brother was murdered by a Hamas terrorist. And it's very easy to let them grow up hating Arabs. And I make a point of not doing that. A lot of people would forgive you. It's not a matter of forgiveness. It's a price you pay when you grow up on hate. It's not something I'm willing to pay. I want my children believing in a world that has a lot of good in it.

The price paid in a 68-year conflict is inherited as a debt, one generation to the next. The summer combat ended as it always does. Both sides buried their children and claimed victory. 60 Minutes, coming up after this short break. 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.

Beyond your income taxes, how much money would you give to help the government? For one Wall Street titan, the answer is hundreds of millions of dollars. David Rubenstein is the All-American. At age 65, a self-made billionaire who's pledging a good part of his fortune to save America's history. When an idea strikes him, he just might write a check for, say, 15 or 20 million dollars. Among his recipients, the Washington Monument, Thomas Jefferson's home Monticello, and just last week, the Iwo Jima Memorial. And he's buying up rare historical documents, preserving them for generations to come.

This is inside the Washington Monument, the moment an earthquake struck Washington, D.C. in 2011. One of the nation's most treasured memorials now had to close. It would take a superman to put it back together again, but in fact, it was Clark Kent in a suit and tie, armed with just a blackberry and a passion for American history. It's a monument to our first president and to the Revolutionary War general. How did he manage to pull it off? Not with muscles, but with money. Lots of money. It's a shorter version of it. Our Clark Kent is David Rubenstein. When he heard about the damage, he offered to pay the $15 million it would take to repair it. Isn't that what government is supposed to do? Well, the government doesn't

have the resources it used to have. We have gigantic budget deficits and large debt. I think private citizens need to pitch in. Co-chair of the campaign for the National Mall, David Rubenstein. Congress, not wanting to be shown up by a single patriotic American, ended up offering to split the bill. And the monument reopened to much fanfare last spring. He's so far spent over $50 million on rare historical documents like original copies of the Declaration of Independence and the Emancipation Proclamation, which now hangs in the Oval Office. And he's looking to spend millions more to restore national monuments

like the Lincoln Memorial and the homes of the founding fathers. In honor of George Washington, we built the Washington Monument. We met up with him at Mount Vernon, George Washington's home, where he gave us a tour and an impromptu history lesson which led inevitably to the founder's teeth, or absence thereof. George Washington only had one tooth, and he used that one tooth to kind of hold in his dentures. And they were called wooden teeth, but not because they were wood.

They were animal teeth. But he had a doctor in New York who was named Dr. Greenwood, and it was shortened to wooden teeth. What they do is they take animal teeth, put them together in a denture, but you need something to hook it onto. So he had his one tooth, and that's why you'll never see a picture of him with his mouth open, because it didn't look good. You're somewhat of a George Washington scholar. Well, I wouldn't say a scholar, but I'd say a fan. Why did you choose him? As it was said

at his funeral, he was first in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen. Unlike most multi-billionaires, Rubinstein doesn't have a foundation and personally oversees each gift from his modest Washington office. How do you make the judgment? Because you don't have a staff, correct? I don't have a staff, but I generally look at things where my money will make a difference. And in patriotic philanthropy, I think I can do some things, because not as many people are doing things in medical research or other kinds of areas like that. But you seem to make these decisions spur of the moment.

Sometimes the best decisions of life are on the spur of the moment. So I generally try to do what I think is right, and sometimes I make mistakes. Care to talk about your mistakes? It would take more than 60 minutes. Rubenstein's foray into patriotic philanthropy began on a whim when on a business trip to New York, he heard the last privately held copy of the 800-year-old British Magna Carta would be auctioned off the next day and would most likely leave the country. Rubenstein sent

his wallet into action. The head auctioneer came in and said, you just bought the Magna Carta. Who are you? We don't know who you are. And I explained and they said, OK, you can be yours if you have the money. You do have the money for this. I said, yes. And they said, OK, you can leave the side door. Nobody ever know. Or there's 100 reporters who want to know who bought it. And I said, I will go out and talk to them to tell them that I'm giving it to the country in effect as a down payment on my obligation to give back to the country. What are the symbols on the seal? Beyond the $21 million purchase price, Rubenstein built a multimillion dollar center at the National Archives to showcase the document that served as the inspiration, not only for our Bill of Rights, but for all Western democracy.

If you're better informed about American history, you can be a better citizen. His friend Warren Buffett says Rubenstein's approach is unique. He may wake up in the morning without knowing what that philanthropic act is going to be by sundown, but something will spark his interest, and when it does, he can move. Jonathan Jarvis is director of the National Park Service.

He oversees the nation's memorials. Have you ever had any offers of somebody who's come forth with his attitude and his dough? Not really. I think David is somewhat unique and is sort of occupying this space of patriotic philanthropy at the moment. What else has he offered to pay for it? Well, the next big project he did after the Washington Monument was the Robert E. Lee Memorial, which sits at Arlington Cemetery. He gave us $12.3 million to do a full restoration. And then he has also offered, just recently, $5 million to restore the Marine Corps War Memorial to Iwo Jima. David recognized that this is an opportunity to give

back to the country and also to recognize the Marine Corps where his father served. The people in the house are wondering, who are these crazy people who are out here? Probably wonder whether I'm about to be indicted for something. We traveled with Rubenstein and his mother Betty to the home he grew up in in Working Glass, Baltimore. His father was a mail sorter at the post office. When I was growing up here, I didn't know exactly what I wanted to do, but I thought one thing I didn't want to do was what you wanted me to do. My dream from a small child that you become a dentist.

Rubenstein disappointed his mother and instead went to law school. Then at age 27, he landed a job in the White House, an advisor to President Carter. How would you rate yourself as a public servant? I enjoyed it very much. I'm not sure the country enjoyed what I did for the country. I like to say that there was a rumor that I was going to be promoted in the second term, and that's why President Carter lost. And since I have left the White House, I can tell you, honestly, nobody's ever invited me back. When he was booted from the White House along with Jimmy Carter in 1980,

Rubenstein tried lawyering, but says he was terrible at it. So in 1987, he and two partners decided to start one of the first D.C.-based investment firms, which they named after a New York hotel. What made you decide to call the company Carlyle? Carlyle sounded kind of British British and it sounded kind of maybe not aristocratic, but sounded like you've been around for a while when we really hadn't been around. We were new. It's now a global giant, over $200 billion in assets. For years, the firm had a reputation as politically connected and secretive. Carlyle's success made Rubenstein a fortune. He says his wife Alice and three kids support his decision to give most of it away. In the end, it's not clear that if you give a child

500 million dollars, he or she will win a Nobel Prize for doing something. And I think if you give somebody too much money, it can force them not to work as hard and be as productive. A cardinal sin in Rubenstein's eyes. And in 2010, he was one of the first to sign on to the giving pledge with Bill Gates and Warren Buffett, promising to give away at least half of his billions to worthy causes. I think many of the members of the Giving Society, and certainly including David, would like to have their last check bounced. I mean, that's the goal. It's a little hard to time things perfectly, so that happens. But there's no Forbes 400 in the graveyard. Like Warren Buffett, Rubenstein isn't flashy. He drives a 20-year-old car. He doesn't drink or smoke, but he's allowed himself one super luxury, a $65 million plane he uses to fly around

the world, an average of 200 days a year. He is a man in motion, appearing on TV. It's a global investment world that we're dealing with. Boosting his firm. And I started at the first buyout firm in Washington, D.C. Sitting on 26 non-for-profit boards. How many people have never been here before? And taking his stand-up comedy routine on the road. I became the deputy domestic policy advisor to the President of the United States, a job I obviously wasn't qualified for, but Carter wasn't qualified either, I thought. When you became wealthy enough to sort of sit back. You remained a workaholic.

It's not work for me. I am not under any pressure or stress when I'm doing this. When I am trying to relax, if I ever do that, that's when I'm under stress. And I think I'm more likely to have a heart attack when I'm relaxing than when I'm under working. Takes a lot of brains to do what we do. Looking for a way to make some dough for you. Work now including learning how to rap after Carlisle doubled its money in an investment in the headphone company Beats by Dre. We're global, we're mobile, we're aiming to please. Only go online, serve at LPs. I did meet Dr. Dre when we were first doing the deal, and we did a takeoff on that for our holiday video.

I haven't done anything like this really since my bar mitzvah. And when I did it, it was supposed to take five minutes, and it took about four hours. And they had a young rap coach for me to explain how to do this, and he said, Mr. Rubenstein, you are the whitest man I've ever met in my life. How are the legs after going up the stairs? I didn't need a defibrillator. I didn't have to go to the hospital. Rubenstein may use self-deprecation as a form of bragging, and if you don't get the message, he puts his name on his good works.

$20 million here, $75 million there, soon adds up to real money. He even joked he put his initials at the top of the Washington Monument. I took my pen out, and I put my initials at the very top of the Washington Monument. So if you ever get there, you'll see my initials. How important is the recognition?

Because you put your name on most of the things you support. Is that, I think, what, to use a Yiddish word, chutzpah? Maybe I have a character flaw and I haven't done it as anonymously because I'm trying to say to people, I came from very modest circumstances and look what I was able to do. You can do the same thing. And while the vast majority of his wealth goes to inanimate objects, Rubenstein took care of D.C.'s favorite residents, mama bear Mei Zhang, papa bear Tian Tian, and baby bear Bao Bao, when the National Zoo ran out of money. I said, okay, I'll put up the money to keep them here, because the Chinese rent pandas. You pay a million dollars a year, more or less, and you get two pandas, and the

money goes for panda conservation. Sweet potatoes, right? Pandas are the biggest attraction at the zoo, and when the government had it shut down, people weren't calling in to say they weren't getting their social security checks or Congress wasn't moving forward with anything. They were saying the panda can was shut down. Richard Nixon first brought the pandas to the U.S. after his historic trip to China in 1972. Panda diplomacy may have worked, but panda love life is another matter. You've compared the relationship between male and female pandas with the U.S. Congress. Members of Congress know what they're supposed to do,

but they don't know how to do it. The pandas know what they're supposed to do, but they fumble. They come here with the best of intentions, but sometimes things don't work out the way that they're supposed to. So it's bye-bye, bow-bow, and thank you, Mr. Rubenstein. So I don't think anything I've said has impressed bow-bow.

No, no. 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.

There are very few things that you can be certain of in life, but you can always be sure the sun will rise each morning. You can bet your bottom dollar that you'll always need air to breathe and water to 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. 60 Minutes is constantly on the lookout for places we've never been before. So when our late colleague Bob Simon heard about a magical place in the Hebrides Islands off the coast of Scotland

known for making some of the great whiskeys in the world, well, the story spoke to him. The place is called Islay, and it's one of five whiskey-producing regions in Scotland that make an expensive type of scotch called single malt. Islay's distilleries turn out relatively small amounts of their own handcrafted brands for a worldwide luxury market that's more than doubled in size in the last decade and become the spirit equivalent of the fine wine business. Bob liked good scotch in beautiful places, so he went off to Scotland.

He died before he could finish the piece, leaving behind a stack of videotapes and some random notes. We decided to finish it for him and raise a glass in his memory. Islay is a small island 20 miles off the west coast of Scotland. There are few trees, miles of windswept heather, and some of the most fertile agricultural land in Scotland. There are sheep and cattle everywhere, and an abundance of wildlife. But that's not why people come here. This is eight small distilleries that produce some of the world's finest single malt whiskeys. This is the whole lifeblood of this island and everybody on it. This is all we know. Jim McEwen has been working in Isla's distillery since he was 15 years

old. He's now master of the work, said Brook Lottie. I just thank God that he chose the Scots and gave them whiskey because we appreciate the gift and we look after it. They've been making it here since the 15th century, when supposedly some monks taught the locals how to use barley, water, and yeast to make a spirit the Scots now call the water of life. They've been perfecting it for 600 years. The distilleries are easy to find, but hard to pronounce. Ardbeg, B'mor, Buklady, Bunahabin, Kalila, Kilhoman, Lagavulin and Laphroaig. As Bob Simon noted, they get harder to pronounce the more you visit. For us guys on the west coast of Scotland, whiskey is a religion because it's a provider.

And the great thing about whiskey, it's not just a drink. It's much more than that. Have you ever watched some old Hollywood movies? Yes, I have. Scotch was always portrayed in Hollywood as a whiskey. When you were down or you were in trouble, the one thing that was going to get you back in your feet and out there was a scotch. Today, if you're down on your luck, you probably can't afford an Isla Single malt. The good ones started around $70 a bottle. The rare ones can go for hundreds of dollars a glass at chic whiskey bars around the world, where they're known for their distinctive smoky taste. It comes from peat, the mossy earthen fuel that's cut from bogs on the island. It was used to heat Scottish homes for centuries and is

still used to toast the barley at Islay Distilleries. John Campbell is the master distiller at Laphroaig, one of the top-selling single malts in America. Peat is the thing that makes Islay unique, and it really resonates with people, and it just engenders a kind of love-hate relationship. And the people that love it absolutely love it with a passion. And there seems to be no shortage of it. Islay is not easy to get to,

usually requiring multiple flights, a long drive and a two-hour ferry ride. Yet enthusiasts continue to make the pilgrimage, especially for the Whiskey Festival. We get literally thousands upon thousands of single malt tourists coming here. They come from all over the world just to set foot on Islay. To study it? No, to drink it. It's lovely. It's clean. It's fresh. It's vibrant. Officially, Whiskey Fest is a celebration of Islay's culture, but mostly it's about drinking.

Absolutely beautiful. No off notes at all. about drinking. As they listened to Jim McEwen extol the virtues of Brook Lottie, the novitiates, connoisseurs, and whiskey snobs approached each glass with reverence bordering on the religious. As the glasses empty, the smiles got bigger. But the islanders will tell you that all of this warmth and good feeling comes not from the alcohol in the spirits, but from the spirit of the place. It is almost mystical, beautiful, dramatic, and quiet. There's no road rage, barely any traffic. If you do get hung up, it's probably because of a farm animal. They have the right of way. And if you do have it upon people, they'll almost always greet you with the Isla Wave.

Everybody just waves because it's just friendly. There's not so many of us, so you just wave to say hi. It's what Elsa Hayes liked about the island when she moved her family here from London to take a manager's position at one of Isla's thriving distilleries. It's strange, is it not, that such a small place with so few people, your products are known everywhere in the world. I know, it makes us all very proud, it does. There's such a boom worldwide for single malts. It's fantastic, and you can really feel that on the island. A lot of the distilleries have doubled production.

And so there's a lot of opportunities there as well. And there's no reason to believe that that won't continue. Well, times are good people drink, times are bad people drink. Is it possible to be socially acceptable to be a teetotaler on this island? Yes. Are there any? Yes. No, I'm not one of them.

Over the years, the island's people have learned how to entertain themselves, often at gatherings called calis, which feature traditional dance and sad songs, mostly about leaving Islay and yearning to return. To sit with my love on the bridge above the rippling waterfall. To go back home, never more to roam, is my dearest wish of all. If this looks and feels a lot like Ireland, that's no coincidence. It's only 25 miles away. They come from the same tribe, share the same Celtic culture and Gaelic language, not to mention a love of good whiskey that gets them through stormy weather and the long winter nights.

There are no movie theaters on island, no dry cleaners, no supermarkets, no McDonald's, at least in the fast food business. Jim McEwen says there's a long list of things that Isla doesn't have and doesn't want. We don't have any crime. We don't have mugging, carjacking, housebreaking, rape, just dope drugs. We don't have that. You can keep that. You're very welcome to it. How do you explain the fact that there's no crime here? There's crime everywhere else.

If you commit a crime in a small community, you will be ostracized and have to leave. Not only that, your family, your children and your children's children will be remembered as the children of the man who committed the crime. Most Scots are forthright, practical people who are proud of their country and the fact that their most famous export has withstood the test of time. They see themselves as artisans, and making whiskey is more about art and alchemy than

manufacturing. Every distiller has their own secrets and superstitions. We'll give you the unclassified two-minute tour. Sorry, we can't offer you free samples. It begins with a bit of trickery on the molting floor, when barley that's been soaked in water is spread out and raked over and over to convince the grain it's spring and time to germinate, releasing the starches that are locked inside. It's then dried with peat smoke to add flavor

and ground into flour, sometimes with 19th century machinery, and then mixed with hot water, transforming the starches into a sugary concoction called mash. Smell that, Bob. Oh, yeah. Isn't that, you can smell the goodness. Yeast is then added, changing the sugar into alcohol, called mash. Smell that Bob. Oh yeah. You can smell the goodness. Yeast is then added, changing the sugar into alcohol, a primitive ale which is then cooked a couple of times in copper stills where the vapor is collected and condensed into this

clear liquid. And that's the stuff we want to go into the barrel. But what I'm looking at is this looks like rubbing alcohol. This is in fact it was... It's very good. If you need a rub, there's no doubt about it. I bet it would be good. But once this goes into the barrel, from then it's just time. It's just time. It's a great journey, you know. This is a child, but the cask is the mother. And that's what makes the journey. If you give a good cask,

you're bound to get a good child. It's that simple. It takes less than three weeks to make, but requires at least 10 years of aging in these oak casks, which add flavor and color to turn it into world-class single malt whiskey. You'll see some of the names. There's Clement Springs, Buffalo Trees, Jim Beam. Bob was surprised to learn that 97% of the casks used to make single malt whiskey had been previously used to age American bourbon and bought secondhand from U.S. distillers. It's testimony to the ingenuity and frugality of the Scots, who have very few oak trees. Without the American barrel, there would be no whiskey industry. It's as simple as that. A sophisticated palette will detect a hint of the oak and bourbon in Islay's single malt, as well as the sweetness of sherry that

comes from wine casks bought in Europe. Before the final product is sold, it will have done time in a number of different casks. Master distiller Jim McEwen is the one who decides when to rotate them and when each barrel is ready to be bottled. He opened a young cask for Bob to sample. I would describe that as mellow yellow, absolutely pure. And it's only seven years old. That's right. Young whiskies are like young people. They're vibrant, they're full of life. In fact, this for me is like coming home from work. At the end of the day, I work really hard and Nobody appreciates me. My wife doesn't appreciate me. My kids don't appreciate me. Life's a bitch. A couple of glasses

of that and it doesn't matter. A couple of shots of that and I am the king of the world. Absolutely. You know, frankly, I never liked this stuff, but the way you're talking me into it. But you got to check every bar. I certainly ought to. Cheers. McEwan is the man responsible for the taste and consistency of the whiskeys at Brook Lottie, which requires a very personal involvement with the product. I have heard you described as the cask whisperer. I do talk to casks. There's no doubt about it.

In what language? Mainly English. It depends on how many whiskeys I've had. If I've had a few whiskies, I tend to revert to the Gaelic language when I'm talking to the cast. It's just one of these things, you go into the warehouse and you pop the bung out, you draw your sample, yeah, and you look at it and you think, wow, you're beautiful. But you're not just ready yet.

Tell you what, I'm going to come back and see you in three months, OK? And other times you find a cask which is so incredibly good, you can't not speak. You say, oh, my God, you are the most beautiful thing I have ever tasted in my life. And you think, oh, jeez, I just want to share this with somebody. But there's nobody around. It's just me and the cask. We'll stay.

On most days, McEwan devotes several hours to quality control, checking up on several hundred casks. But it's a fantastic job, nosing and tasting whiskeys. And you can still walk out of here in the evening. Occasionally I need some help. There's no doubt about that. Dying devotion to one's whiskey is apparently not all that unusual. While we were on I-Lab, the camera crew ran into a party of Canadians, the friends and family of a deceased single malt lover named Bill, who wanted his ashes scattered in the waters opposite his favorite distillery.

Funds for the pilgrimage were set aside in his will. That's why he wants it. It's good. It's good. To Bill. To Bill. Now he's happy. Now he's happy. After that, the only thing left was for Bob to say goodbye to Jim McEwen. And it turned out to be last call for our old pal Bob Simon. Cheers, Bob. Hope you've enjoyed this little visit here. You're speaking in the past. It's not over.

Yeah, I'm going to get you out of here, man. This is costing me a fortune. Picking up the Pieces How Bob Simon's unfinished Whiskey Island story finally made it on the air. Go to 60minutesovertime.com In the mail, comments on the story we called The Battle Above about the vulnerabilities

of American satellites. Why does the American press think they have to blab our military secrets? A Colorado viewer wrote this, One sentence really caught my attention. The important thing is to avoid a shooting war that could create so much debris that it might become impossible to put satellites or astronauts into orbit. I suppose that debris would also make it impossible for hostile alien invaders to get through from space. I'm Steve Croft. We'll be back next week with another edition of 60 Minutes.