There are flavours, available for using in your own recipes, that give the juice a smoke like taste.
But if you don't want to get into DIY juice making, Inawera do a"Dirty" Base, and mix your chosen flavour using it. It's claimed to have a more "ashtray" like flavour.
Tjey also sell aflavour, of which you can add a couple or more drops to a 10ml bottle of juice, called DNB. It's the same as their "Dirty Base", but in concentrated, drop form, handy in your preferred tobacco flavour.
TBH I didn't find it more "cigarette like" but it does change the flavour, enough, maybe, for the initial change from smoking to vaping.
Also there are countless menthol tobacco flavours, so it might be worth taking him to a vape shop, if there's one near you, where they do tasting. That, along with the atmosphere positive often found, could do the trick.
There are as well, in the US, 3 or 4 eliquid fabriquants who make juice adding other tobacco alkaloids in addition to nicotine, called WTA (Whole Tobacco Alkaloids), apparantly safe, certainly safer than smoking, but I have no idea of the legal position in EU.
But it does work, I can personally vouch for that.
If it's really too hard with ordinary eliquid, it might be worthwhile checking it out.
PM me if you want to know more, although I can't promise a quick reply, as our house was burnt down just before Christmas, and at the moment I don't have a lot of time to spend on the forums unfortunately, what with insurance RDV's, experts and all the hassles around it. Though it gave me more than enough smoke to last alifetime, I must admit!!!
Good luck, and keep trying, as even people I met who said they'd never vape THAT stuff, are now Ecig in hand
