The recall notice arrived on a Friday, which is when the government releases the news it does not want you to chew on. A small company in Forestville, New York, was recalling all batches of its pumpkin juice because it might contain botulism, the potentially fatal kind, the kind that starts with weakness and dizziness and ends with a sentence nobody finishes.

The cause, according to the food-safety reporting that followed, was not a mistake in the recipe. It was a mistake in the math. Pumpkin is a low-acid food. Botulism, the bacterium behind the illness, refuses to grow in acid and throws a party in anything alkaline. The juice’s acidity did not meet the standard. The bacterium, a punctual creature, arrived on time.

And the public’s reaction, to be honest, was the funniest part of the whole affair, because the public was annoyed.

“I’ve had it every October for six years,” said Dale Hutchins, 54, of Buffalo, who described the juice as “the only thing that tastes like a porch.” He was asked whether drinking a juice that could, in the worst case, stop his breathing was worth it. He said, and this is a direct quote, “I’d rather go out tasting like a porch.”

Doctors were brought in to explain the risk in calm voices. A gastroenterologist described botulism as “a very old, very patient poison,” which is the kind of line that makes you feel you are being briefed before a heist. She explained that the toxin attacks the nerves, that the first signs are double vision and trouble swallowing, and that the treatment is an antitoxin that works best before you notice anything is wrong. Dr. Karen Osei, the gastroenterologist, said the odds of getting sick from a single bottle were low. She then said the odds of getting sick from a single bottle were the only odds that matter to the person holding the bottle.

The company, Walker’s Wine Juice, moved quickly and without drama, pulling product from its own store and from a handful of wineries that had been using the juice, presumably to make the kind of autumn cocktail that appears on menus only in October and is gone by November, like the sweater that goes with it.

The lesson, if a pumpkin can teach one, is that fall is a negotiation with decay. The jack-o’-lantern on the step is a controlled rot. The cider is a controlled ferment. The pumpkin juice was a rot that got out of hand, and the only thing standing between a seasonal drink and a medical event was a number on a pH meter, a number that, in this case, was a little too friendly.

Dale Hutchins said he would drink the rest of his case anyway. He said he would “taste it first.” Experts say the botulinum toxin has no taste, no smell, and no warning, which is the bacterium’s single most charming quality. Dale said he would taste it first anyway.

He has eleven bottles left. He plans to finish them by Halloween.