Welcome to Taste Test, where every week our critic Jonah Flicker explores the most buzzworthy and interesting whiskeys in the world. Check back each Sunday for his latest whiskey review.

There’s no use sugarcoating it—MGP has hit a bit of a rough patch over the past year. As we’ve previously reported, the Indiana distillery decided to scale back production about a year ago, and then reported some significant drops in profit over the past six months. Still, it continues to release some truly excellent whiskey, the best of which often comes out under its own in-house brands and not for its many outside contracts. The latest example of this is the new Remus Gatsby Reserve, MGP’s annual top-tier bourbon that continues to stand out in a very crowded field.

Despite all of the bad news about the whiskey industry, we can still argue over the main drivers—maybe this is a real downturn that marks a major shift in alcohol consumption and a sign of a substantial whiskey glut, or perhaps this is a course correction and a minor blip in a cycle that will return to its former glory. Either way, the market for sourced and contract-distilled whiskey has softened, meaning that distilleries like MGP are having to alter their production output. Still, it should be noted that Bardstown Bourbon Company, another major contract distiller and producer of its own fantastic whiskey, just announced significant expansion plans for 2026. It’s unclear who is the real soothsayer in this situation.

Whatever the case, MGP continues to release some really great bourbon and rye whiskey under its Ross & Squibb division, which is responsible for the in-house brands produced at the distillery. Remus Gatsby Reserve is the premier expression of the Remus Bourbon label, a brand named after a pretty terrible Prohibition figure. Gatsby Reserve is obviously named after the titular character of The Great Gatsby, another complicated and semi-tragic figure, and the whiskey is also complicated (in a good way) but not tragic at all. This year marked the 100th anniversary of the book’s release, so master distiller Ian Stirsman wanted to pull out all the stops for the 2025 edition, and I’d have to say that he succeeded.

Remus Gatsby Reserve is a 15-year-old bourbon bottled at cask strength 102.8 proof. It’s made from MGP’s 21 percent rye mashbill (the rest is 75 percent corn and four percent malted barley), which provides a nice bit of spice to balance the whiskey’s sweetness. Fifteen years is getting up there for a bourbon, but as evidenced by releases like Russell’s Reserve 15 and Knob Creek 15, and even older whiskeys from Knob Creek and Redemption, bourbon can still be pretty delicious at that age. And that is certainly the case here. The palate is rich with a textured mouthfeel and notes of cherry syrup, maple, caramelized brown sugar, vanilla custard, licorice, toasted oak, and cola, and there’s a nice bit of heat as you sip. This is a really delicious bourbon and there’s not much to find fault with here.

While MGP hit it out of the park again with this release, that might not be enough to ease the jitters that the corporate board must be feeling about the current state of American whiskey. But hey, if the ship is doing down, we might as well drink some really excellent bourbon while the band plays its last tune. Actually, the American whiskey industry most likely has some fight left in it, but if there is currently more than enough bourbon to use for superb releases like this, especially one that is priced relatively reasonably (SRP is $200), that’s a good thing for whiskey fans.

Score: 97