Rolando Reyes Sr. awarded Lifetime Achievement Award
By:
European Cigar Cult Journal
Posted: August 2009

Carlos Diez, President of Reyes Family Cigars and grandson of company founder - Rolando Reyes Sr., expressed his great honor to receive on behalf of his Grandfather, at the IPCPR in early August, the Lifetime Achievement Award 2009 given by the European Cigar Cult Journal at a cocktail ceremony in New Orleans. Diez emphasized his Grandfather’s humble thanks to the ECCJ and cigar aficionados worldwide for this recognition of his decades of contribution to the cigar industry. The Lifetime Achievement Award winner, Rolando Reyes, Sr., brought the Cuba Aliados and Puros Indios brands to life as brilliantly-made and wonderfully-affordable cigars from Honduras. His grandson, Carlos, when accepting the award, told the audience, after thanking ECCJ Editor Reinhold Widmayer and the ECCJ staff, “My grandfather could not be here today. He called me a few days ago, and as a testament to how much he loves his factory, how much he loves his cigars, the passion that he has, he called and said, ‘Carlos, I cannot be at the [IPCPR]this year because of what’s going on here in Honduras (with the political turmoil).’ “He added, ‘They took my factory from me in Cuba; they won’t take it away from me in Honduras, without a fight.’ I think that shows how much he loves it.”