Inspired by Harry Potter

Have you ever noticed how often the characters in the Harry Potter series drink pumpkin juice? At every feast in the dining hall, Harry, Ron and Hermione are drinking pumpkin juice. I noticed it because it's something that never would have occurred to me. Pumpkin juice? Anyway, with fall and Halloween and an abundance of squash in the pantry, we decided to see what the fuss was all about. An enormous Hubbard squash was waiting for some love. We cut half of it into steaks and juiced the other half. We sealed the steaks and the juice in a bag and cooked them at 180 degrees in the immersion circulator until the squash was tender and toothsome. Then we strained the juices and chilled it for making libations. Tonight's result is a play off a Dark and Stormy. After tasting, we both agreed that the pumpkin (okay, okay, squash) juice called for rum. Ginger and squash are an inspired match so we took two ounces of Appleton Estate Rum ( no Gosling's in the house at the moment) and poured it over ice. We added two ounces of squash juice and topped it off with four ounces of Reed's Extra Ginger Brew, a dry, intensely spicy soda. The reviews were mixed, everyone agreed that it was refreshing and well balanced but in the end, it all came down to the squash juice. Either you like it or you don't.  But if we served it at Hogwarts I'm sure it would be a smashing success.