Stashes are more appropriate; since they're really just handier references to commits they can be cherry-picked too, as `stash@{N}` where N is the zero-based integer for which one you want.

(You can even `git cherry-pick stash@{0}^` for the commit the stash was made at. It really is just a commit made at that point, with that parent, only without updating HEAD, or the checked-out branch.)

Thanks for reminding me, I have used arbitrarily named refs before just slipped my mind. So it could be like 'refs/patches' or whatever. I used refs/backups in my safety net https://gist.github.com/chx/3a694c2a077451e3d446f85546bb9278