Making the desert bloom ... with tequila

(JNS) - "We are Zionists and pro-Israel. We want to turn the Negev green and this looks like a way to do so," Avi Leitner, the president of the Blue Agave Israel Group, told JNS on Monday.

Leitner and his partner Avi Rosenfeld went to Mexico together years ago and discovered the secret behind producing high-end tequila-the blue agave plant.

The two visited areas in Mexico where farmers grow agave and identified similarities in weather conditions there and in the Negev Desert. Six years ago, they decided to make their dream a reality.

"It was a risk," Leitner said. "We were bringing these plant...