Damn Rebel Bitches ... the new perfume for the Scots girl of your dreams

Sheridan, who writes the best-selling Mirabelle Bevan murder mystery series, has founded Urban Reivers which will launch in Edinburgh on Tuesday.

It was an idea sparked by the independence referendum when she began to ponder the wider picture of how Scots view and define ourselves.

While acknowledging that we have a "cracking brand as Scotland", Sheridan said she wanted to look beyond simply "slapping a kilt on it". At the crux of Urban Reivers is the thought-provoking question: what would Scotland make if there were no tourists?

Her answer was to tap into a wealth of indigenous talent including bespoke distillers, artisan perfumers and envelope-pushing textile designers, bringing them together in one remarkable collaboration.

"When it comes to Scottish cultural identity people tend to do one of two things," she said. "They either do what [author and academic] Alastair Moffatt calls 'slapping a kilt on it' or they deny it altogether.

"I went into a gift shop recently to buy a present and it was full of Scottish cliches or things that weren't real history."

Urban Reivers comprises three ranges: Reek, Swally and Find Your Way Home.

Reek – as the name suggests – is about smell and encapsulates a powerful message. "One of the things that drives me nuts is that we don't memorialise women," said Sheridan.

"In my hometown of Edinburgh there are over 200 statues to men. There are more statues to animals than there are to women. I decided to memorialise women through scent."

Sheridan worked with bespoke perfumer Sarah McCartney to create a fragrance called Damn Rebel Bitches which is based on the lives of the Jacobite women.

"It is not what they smelled like, it is things that would have been around them," she said. "It includes clary sage – a women's herb used in childbirth – malt, blood oranges and hazelnut which was a big part of the Highland diet."

Another scent in the pipeline is Black Agnes, a tribute to the Countess of Dunbar who defended her home, Dunbar Castle, against an English siege in 1337.

Sheridan plans to expand the range to include scented candles. "There will be a crofter candle that smells of peat fires and a lowlander candle that will smell of hay and grass," she added.

Find Your Way Home, meanwhile, features silk accessories including bow-ties, pocket squares and scarves that are based on vintage maps of Scotland.

The design is in homage to the navigational guides printed on parachute silks and dropped behind enemy lines during the Second World War allowing resistance fighters and Allied troops to escape to safety.

"Military history is a big part of Scottish history because we are great soldiers – whether that is in medieval times or during the Second World War," said Sheridan.

It also taps into another theme close to her heart. "My family were immigrants to Scotland at the turn of the 20th century – my mother's side were Russian Jews and left to escape the pogroms," she said. "We found our way home here. Many people share a similar history and background."

The third element to Urban Reivers is dubbed Swally celebrating Scottish distilling and our love of a good tipple.

"Not necessarily the big whisky brands, this is about small batch craft distilling," she said. "Drink has quite a bad press – we are all meant to be drunken Scots or whatever. I'm not having that. We have a really sophisticated brewing and distilling industry that it is a big part of our hospitality."

Sheridan has devised a colourful cocktail range. "There is the Big Sook which is a Scottish potato vodka cocktail," she says. "Another is called the Selkie, named after the mythical seal woman, made from a seaweed Shetland Reel Gin with foraged elderflower cordial and a bit of Hebridean sea salt."

Urban Reivers will sell items from other Scottish designers including Modren tweed bags, cashmere sweaters from Tailor Retailored, Sara Hill make-up and velvet cushions by Emma June Designs. The shop is an exclusive stockist of Harris Gin for the next month.

It is Sheridan's hope that Urban Reivers will help bolster Scotland's often beleaguered self-image. "There is a cultural cringe about being Scottish," she said. "That mystifies me because I don't feel that way. It is an interesting thing to challenge.

"There is so much to be proud of in Scotland. I want to trumpet that and embrace our amazing creative culture."

Her father Ronnie was an antiques dealer and as a historical novelist Sheridan shares his love of artefacts. "I don't want to make anything at Urban Reivers that can't end up in a museum in 100 years, but it still has to be a useful object," she said.

While a passionate campaigner for Scottish independence in 2014, Sheridan is keen to assert that she views Urban Reivers as having a universal appeal. "It is not about the Yes movement," she said. "It is something I think is interesting for everyone and therefore a way to bring people together."

She joined Edinburgh Women for Independence in the build-up to the referendum after changing her mind from No to Yes. Sheridan was a regular blogger for the National Collective and Bella Caledonia, putting her own writing career on hold to concentrate on campaigning.

The author has previously said that the No vote left her "devastated" and it "took months to get back to any kind of balance".

She will be watching events surrounding IndyRef2 with interest. "I have discovered that in politics you don't know what is going to happen," she said. "There is no campaign until there is a date [for a second independence referendum]. If there is a campaign I would want to be involved."

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Urban Reivers pop-up shop will be at 46a George Street, Edinburgh, from August 2-29. ​