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Collections and seasonal shelves
The curated collections on Home, how the By taste lists are chosen, and when the seasonal and holiday shelves change.
Collections are hand-picked shelves of cocktails on the Home tab, from the classics to tiki to brunch. The first card changes with the calendar: a seasonal shelf most of the year, and a holiday shelf around the holidays.

Browse a collection
Scroll Home to Collections and swipe sideways through the cards. Each card shows how many cocktails it holds. Tap one to open its list, which has the same strength bar, filter menu and search as every other list. Its Default sort keeps the collection’s own order. See Find a cocktail.
The permanent collections are:
Modern Classics: the canon every home bar should know.Sours: citrus-bright and balanced.Tiki: rum, fruit and a little theatre.Bubbly: sparkling and celebratory.Brunch: bubbles and bracers for the late morning.After Dinner: rich, sweet nightcaps.Three-Ingredient: every drink with three ingredients or fewer.Low-ABV: every drink marked Light.
The first six are curated lists. Three-Ingredient and Low-ABV are rules, so a recipe of your own appears there too when it fits.
The seasonal shelf
The first card is tagged In season. Through the year it rotates between four shelves:
| Shelf | Northern Hemisphere | Southern Hemisphere |
|---|---|---|
Winter Warmers |
December–February | June–August |
Spring Fresh |
March–May | September–November |
Summer Coolers |
June–August | December–February |
Autumn Spice |
September–November | March–May |
Sakaba flips the seasons if your device’s region is Australia, New Zealand, Brazil, Argentina, Chile, South Africa, Uruguay or Paraguay. The region is set in your iPhone’s Settings → General → Language & Region.
Holiday shelves
Around a holiday, its shelf takes the In season spot for a few days and then hands it back:
| Shelf | When | Who sees it |
|---|---|---|
Christmas |
December 18–26 | Everyone |
New Year's Sparkle |
December 27–January 7 | Everyone |
Lunar New Year |
4 days before to 2 days after Lunar New Year | Chinese or Korean app language, or a region of China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Macau, Singapore, South Korea or Vietnam |
Valentine's |
February 7–14 | Everyone except Brazil |
St. Patrick's |
March 11–17 | Everyone |
Dia dos Namorados |
June 6–12 | Brazil |
Halloween |
October 24–31 | Everyone |
Lunar New Year moves every year; Sakaba works out the date from the lunar calendar. When two shelves overlap, the shorter window wins, so a holiday always beats the season around it.
The shelf changes at midnight where you are, and it doesn’t need an internet connection.
By taste
The By taste pills on Home use each drink’s flavor profile, four scores from 0 to 5:
Sour,Sweet,BitterandBoozylist drinks where that score is 3 or more and at least as high as each of the other three.Balancedlists drinks whose four scores add up to 4 or more, with none of them at 4 or above.
A drink can appear under more than one taste, for example when its sour and sweet scores tie.
Good to know
- Holiday reminders. If you’ve turned on weekend reminders, the Friday reminder in a holiday’s first week tells you the shelf has landed. Tapping it opens the shelf, even after the holiday is over.
- Plus recipes. Collections include Plus recipes, marked with ✨. Turn on
Free recipes onlyin the filter menu to see only the ones you can open.
Questions? Write to sakabaapp@proton.me.
From the blog
- Sweet, Sour, Bitter, Boozy: How to Read a Cocktail's Flavor Profile Every classic cocktail is a balance of four axes. Once you can read them, you can predict whether you'll like a drink before you make it.
- 5 Rum Cocktails for When It's Too Hot to Cook From a three-ingredient Daiquiri to a blended Piña Colada — five free rum classics for the hottest weeks of the year.