Bourbon barrels flavoring scotch, tequila and rum around the world

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This is an updated mentation of a communicative archetypal published connected April 6, 2025. The archetypal video tin beryllium viewed here.

If idiosyncratic asked you to sanction a merchandise that was archetypal made 2,000 years ago, inactive looks and works arsenic it ever has, and inactive plays a captious relation successful planetary commerce, would you beryllium stumped?

It turns out, the reply is the elemental woody barrel. Almost ever made of oak, barrels person a agelong and fascinating history. First built and utilized by the Celts and Romans, they person held astir each commodity implicit the centuries.

Metal and integrative and cardboard agelong agone eclipsed barrels for the shipment of astir items, but arsenic we archetypal reported earlier this year, erstwhile it comes to vino and whiskey – particularly bourbon whiskey – the oak tube inactive reigns, not conscionable arsenic a container, but for the magic that the wood gives the whiskey.

Bill Whitaker: Well we were speaking with someone. And they called a whiskey tube a breathing clip machine.

Brad Boswell: I emotion that.

Brad Boswell is the CEO of Independent Stave, the largest shaper of woody barrels successful the world. Brad's great-grandfather founded the institution successful 1912 successful Missouri. It present has operations worldwide; we met him successful Kentucky.

Brad Boswell: Most of our barrels would person utile lives of 50+ years.

Bill Whitaker: Fifty positive years.

Brad Boswell: Fifty positive years, yeah. Like, I'll spell to antithetic places and look astatine barrels astatine distilleries oregon wineries astir the world. And I tin spot barrels that my gramps made, you know, successful the 1960s. I inactive spot 'em.

A tube begins arsenic a log from a achromatic oak histrion fed into what's known arsenic a stave mill, wherever it's chopped into ever-smaller pieces – staves – which are past arranged successful immense "Jenga"-style stacks and "seasoned" outdoors for 3 to six months earlier heading to a adjacent "cooperage," wherever the barrels are built.

Brad Boswell: There's nary nails, look implicit here, nary glue --

Brad Boswell's newest cooperage produces thousands of barrels each day.

Bill Whitaker: How galore of these spell into a emblematic barrel?

Brad Boswell: Typically betwixt 28 and 32 staves per barrel.

After a tube is "raised" mostly by hand, it travels done a big of different steps and checks to marque it acceptable to statesman its life, including being toasted and past charred connected the inside.

Brad Boswell: Most of the barrels we marque contiguous are bespoke. We cognize precisely who this barrel's going to, which distillery.

Bill Whitaker: How astir that. How astir that.

The request for specified a immense measurement of barrels tin beryllium attributed chiefly to 1 thing: bourbon.

Brad Boswell: President Franklin Roosevelt successful the '30's became much circumstantial astir what bourbon whiskey should be. And astatine that clip helium said, you know, bourbon should beryllium successful caller charred oak barrels.

Bill Whitaker: So if it's not successful 1 of these barrels, it's not bourbon?

Brad Boswell: That's correct. Bourbon has to beryllium aged successful a caller charred oak container.

That rule, positive booming user request for bourbon starting successful the aboriginal 2000's, has been precise bully for the tube business. 3.2 cardinal caller barrels were filled with whiskey past twelvemonth successful Kentucky alone, and much than 14 cardinal afloat barrels are aging successful the state, successful monolithic warehouses known arsenic rickhouses.

Bill Whitaker: How many-- barrels are successful this rickhouse?

Dan Callaway: 23,500 connected six floors.

Bill Whitaker with Dan Callaway, the Bardstown Bourbon "master blender"

Dan Callaway is the "master blender" for Bardstown Bourbon, a young but fast-growing Kentucky distillery.

Dan Callaway: To marque a large whiskey you person to commencement with a large distillate, a wide spirit. But past the magic comes from the barrel. The information that it's caller charred oak, it's conscionable incredible.

Bill Whitaker: So the-- the tube is-- is important to your product?

Dan Callaway: Absolutely. Depending connected who you speech to-- immoderate would accidental 50% of the flavor, possibly up to 70-80% of the quality is derived from that barrel.

The remainder of the spirit comes from what's known arsenic the "mash bill," grains similar maize and wheat and rye that are mixed with h2o and fermented with yeast.

Despite bourbon having precocious been threatened oregon deed with tariffs by different countries successful retaliation for President Trump's tariffs, Bardstown's immense distillery is inactive producing capable caller whiskey to capable much than 5,000 barrels a week.

Bill Whitaker: You instrumentality the-- the wide liquid, which is fundamentally what radical telephone "moonshine," goes done this process and comes retired arsenic this beauteous brown, tasty liquid here. How does that happen?

Dan Callaway: Yeah, truthful I ever comparison it to a seesaw, okay? So erstwhile it comes disconnected the still-- moonshine, similar you said-- it's a seesaw that's retired of balance. But each twelvemonth that goes by of the tube aging, the seesaw comes into balance. And what the tube is bringing is caramel, vanilla, baking spice - and each this rich, beauteous color.

How tin coagulated oak nutrient each those flavors and spices? Back wherever the barrels are built, Brad Boswell gave america a vivid acquisition with a tube that had conscionable been toasted — a process that brings sugars successful the wood to the surface.

Brad Boswell: Smell that. Smell that. I mean-

Bill Whitaker: That does odor delicious.

Brad Boswell: It's incredible.

Bill Whitaker: It truly does. It's amazing.

Brad Boswell: There's a crushed wherefore radical inactive usage oak barrels 2,000 years later.

Bill Whitaker: So erstwhile I'm sipping the bourbon, I'm sipping this barrel.

Brad Boswell: That's right, absolutely.

After toasting, we, and the barrels, moved to the visually stunning "char" oven.

Brad Boswell: So we'll spot this tube coming done close here.

Bill Whitaker: Oh, look astatine that.

Brad Boswell: Yeah. So actually, the wrong of the tube is connected fire.

Bill Whitaker: They conscionable airy the tube connected fire?

Brad Boswell: Yup, we airy the tube connected fire, and that teases retired much and much of the flavors. And we telephone that an alligator char, 'cause the wrong of the tube really looks similar benignant of an alligator's back.

We could spot that blistering wrong a newly-charred tube pulled disconnected the line.

Brad Boswell: I mean people, you know, expect this to odor similar a campfire. It smells much similar a confectionery product.

Bill Whitaker: It does-- I tin odor the caramel and the vanilla.

What that tube tin springiness to the whiskey is evident successful these glasses.

Brad Boswell: So this is the aforesaid nonstop distillate that came disconnected the inactive astatine the nonstop aforesaid time, went into a barrel. Four years later. And this we conscionable kept successful a solid bottle.

It's besides evident successful the taste. First, the achromatic lightning…

Bill Whitaker: Wow, that gives a punch.

Brad Boswell: Yes, it does, it does.

…and past the barrel-aged bourbon.

Bill Whitaker: Oh, large difference.

Brad Boswell: Huge difference.

Bill Whitaker: It's smooth.

Brad Boswell: Oh, it's smooth.

Some of that creaseless comes from somesthesia swings successful the rickhouses, according to Bardstown Bourbon's Dan Callaway.

Dan Callaway: We privation those swings. When it-- you know, erstwhile it gets truly hot, things expand, lets the liquid in. When it gets cold, it contracts. And it's that earthy progression of successful retired that ages the bourbon truthful beautifully arsenic the liquid interacts with the wood.

As those barrels are aging whiskey for four, 5 oregon six years, immoderate savvy investors person figured retired there's wealth to beryllium made!

Chris Heller: Whiskey is an absorbing asset, successful the consciousness that arsenic it ages, it becomes much valuable.

Chris Heller is co-founder of California-based Cordillera Investment Partners.

Bill Whitaker: So, explicate to maine however this works. You-- you spell up to a distiller and say, "I privation to bargain those barrels filled with what volition yet go bourbon"?

Chris Heller: So, that is precisely right.

Heller and his partners bargain thousands of recently filled barrels from distillers, wage to store them arsenic the whiskey ages, past merchantability them to trade bourbon brands.

Bill Whitaker: What are your starting costs?

Chris Heller: Somewhere successful the $600 to $1,000 scope is benignant of the terms of a new-- what's called a new-fill tube of whiskey.

Bill Whitaker: At the end, what bash you merchantability it for?

Chris Heller: It tin beryllium anyplace from $2,000 to $4,000, by the end.

Bill Whitaker: That's a beauteous bully instrumentality connected your investment.

Chris Heller: We truly find it an absorbing and compelling concern area.

Bill Whitaker: Nice mode to accidental it.

Whoever makes it, owns it, oregon ages it, erstwhile bourbon is emptied from a tube aft 5 oregon six years, that barrel's beingness is conscionable beginning, and it's apt to question the world.

Brad Boswell: It's existent absorbing that erstwhile the bourbon tube is freshly dumped, there's inactive astir 2 gallons of really bourbon trapped successful that wood.

Bill Whitaker: That has conscionable seeped into the wood?

Brad Boswell: That's seeped into the wood. So then, a lotta the secondary users really look guardant to putting their merchandise into the tube again for four, six, ten, a lotta scotches 12 years, 18 years--

Bill Whitaker: And it tin prime up that American bourbon taste?

Brad Boswell: Absolutely. Then it pulls retired that saccharine bourbon.

That saccharine sensation successful the wood makes utilized bourbon barrels precise blistery commodities.

Jessica Loseke: We truly presumption our relation successful the manufacture arsenic moving arsenic galore barrels from the archetypal root to the adjacent stopping constituent arsenic accelerated arsenic possible.

Bill Whitaker with Jess and Ben Loseke of Midwest Barrels

Jess and Ben Loseke ain Midwest Barrels. Their Kentucky warehouse is stacked to the rafters with bare barrels.

Ben Loseke: So we're the adjacent halt for the 2nd usage of that barrel. So successful Kentucky here, we bring successful barrels from each the large distilleries and past nonstop them backmost out.

Bill Whitaker: These barrels would beryllium shipped retired and past refilled with thing else?

Ben Loseke: Correct, yeah. So the thought is to get these barrels successful present and retired of present arsenic rapidly arsenic possible. So we'll crook implicit this full warehouse each 2 to 3 weeks.

Ben Loseke: Probably 70 to 80% of our concern is overseas.

It started arsenic a hobby. While Ben was finishing his PhD successful Nebraska, helium began buying barrels, and selling them to section trade breweries.

Bill Whitaker: You said that a fewer barrels-- were a large bid successful the beginning. (LAUGH)

Ben Loseke: Yeah.

Bill Whitaker: What's a large bid today?

Ben Loseke: 10,000.

Bill Whitaker: 10,000?

Ben Loseke: Yeah, yeah. India, and China, and Scotland, and Ireland are, by far, our 4 biggest markets.

The Kentucky Distillers' Association says that the authorities exported much than $300 cardinal worthy of utilized barrels past year…just to Scotland, wherever they'll beryllium utilized to property scotch whisky for up to 40 years!

Bill Whitaker: Could you conscionable tick disconnected for maine the antithetic spirits that these barrels volition hold?

Brad Boswell: They commencement with bourbon, Tennessee whiskey, scotch whiskey, tequila, rum, pisco made successful Peru, cachaça made successful Brazil volition usage these barrels.

Bill Whitaker: Beer.

Brad Boswell: Beer uses them. These barrels for definite extremity up successful China. A lotta these barrels extremity up successful Japan. It's --it's everywhere.

Dan Callaway: Beautiful.

Now, maestro blenders similar Bardstown's Dan Callaway –

Dan Callaway: This volition beryllium cask strength, nonstop from the barrel.

— Are bringing barrels back to Kentucky to bash peculiar "finishes" for their whiskeys.

Dan Callaway: So this is the archetypal of its kind. It is an American whiskey finished successful Indian whiskey barrels. Okay. Indian whiskey is traditionally aged successful a bourbon barrel. So the carnal tube has near Kentucky, gone to Bangalore, filled with a -- a barley and past sent backmost here.

Callaway finished this whiskey successful those barrels for 17 months.

Bill Whitaker: My God, that's good.

Dan Callaway: Yeah.

One of Dan Callaway's newest creations, called Cathedral, whitethorn beryllium his astir miraculous yet.

Dan Callaway: We sourced wood successful the Loire Valley, the Bercé forest. And this plot, this batch successful the wood was selected to repair Notre Dame aft the fires. So astir of the wood went there. We were fortunate to get six barrels made from that wood. And we picked our-- our champion stocks of Kentucky bourbon up to 19 years old. Filled the barrels. They property for 14 months.

Bill Whitaker: You cognize however chaotic that is?

Dan Callaway: Yeah.

Bill Whitaker: That the beams that restored Notre Dame travel from the aforesaid wood arsenic your casks?

Dan Callaway: The aforesaid lot.

Bill Whitaker: Now that's a communicative to tell.

Dan Callaway: Absolutely.

…and a whiskey to taste.

Bill Whitaker: Ahhh.

Dan Callaway: It's nice.

When Bardstown enactment that Cathedral bourbon connected merchantability earlier this year, bottles sold retired successful near-record time. Remember, they lone made six barrels full. Now connected the secondary market, Cathedral is listed for arsenic overmuch arsenic $2,000 a bottle!

Produced by Rome Hartman. Associate producer, Matthew Riley. Broadcast associate, Mariah Johnson. Edited by Craig Crawford.

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