The Arturo Fuente Añejo Shark #77 is the cult vitola of the Añejo line — a 5 7/8 x 48/64 box-pressed figurado that starts round at the head and transitions to a perfectly square foot, draped in a near-black Connecticut Broadleaf Maduro leaf aged five years, reputed to be finished in cognac barrels. Added to the Añejo lineup in 2001, the shape was so distinctive that smokers abandoned the usual ring-gauge name entirely and started calling it the Shark; the "77" itself is a Carlos Fuente Jr. inside joke, borrowed from a pair of sharks at Sea World whose pectoral fins he thought resembled sevens.
Underneath the wrapper sits a Dominican binder and long-aged Dominican filler pulled from the same stocks that build the Fuente Fuente OpusX. The flavor delivers the full Añejo signature — dark cocoa, cedar, espresso, raisin, and black pepper — but the squared foot compresses the draw and intensifies everything early, before the cigar rounds out mid-way. Medium-plus to full in body, best paired with coffee, aged rum, or a bourbon-cask Scotch.
The Shark is the hardest Añejo to roll and the first to disappear from the holiday allocation. Every year. Without exception.
- Vitola: Box-Pressed Figurado (Round-to-Square), 5 7/8 x 48/64
- Wrapper: Connecticut Broadleaf Maduro (5-year aged)
- Binder: Dominican Republic
- Filler: Dominican Republic
- Factory: Tabacalera A. Fuente y Cia, Dominican Republic
- Strength: Medium Plus to Full
- Release: Introduced 2001 · Limited annual holiday production
