They can't actually vote - you have to be a Scottish resident - but with 1.79 million Australians claiming Scottish ancestry in the 2011 Census, it seems everyone has a view.

Bill Gibson, owner of the House of Scotland gift shop in Balwyn, says customers with even a smidgen of Scottish blood have felt the urgent need to rant about everything from 18th century Bonnie Prince Charlie's claim to the throne to the size of the North Sea oil reserve.

And despite having a Glasgow brogue as thick as Dundee marmalade and selling garb as Scottish as tartan garters, bagpipes and fake thistles, Mr Gibson is against independence, on economic grounds.

He and his wife Janet, who migrated in the 1960s, will be watching anxiously on the internet around Friday lunchtime when the result is expected.

He is normally "not much of a drinker" but if Scotland stays in the UK, "I'll probably have a drink, yes" - a Grouse whisky because "being Scottish, it's good value" and he doesn't think the brand has yet been sold to the Japanese.

Pro-independence expat Julie McArthur was also thinking of whisky. She and a group of Scottish friends will meet at the Imperial Hotel in Bourke Street to watch the results on the BBC.

If the yes vote triumphs, and possibly if it doesn't, they will proceed to down some drams at a few whisky bars.

The native Glaswegian, 32, who migrated here four years ago, admits she's a nervous wreck.

"I'm very excited. Just very nervous, finding it hard to concentrate," she said.

She feels Scotland "has the ability and the talent to govern itself" and believes separatist leader Alex Salmond's pledges to safeguard the National Health Service from privatisation, get rid of nuclear weapons and fund the economy with the oil reserves.

She feels the time has come. Her parents in Scotland, like many older people, would probably vote no. "I think they don't want to take the risk. Which is fair enough; I understand that, it is a risky move, but I think younger generations are more open to see it as an opportunity rather than so much of a risk."

Melbourne public relations officer Tony Faccenda, 31, originally from Falkirk, a town between Glasgow and Edinburgh, has waged an inner battle of Yes versus No. "It's the heart against the head," he said, but he now favours staying in the United Kingdom.

"Emotionally I feel a sense of pride that would come with our being an independent country but rationally I think the economy just wouldn't work. A lot of people seem to think we've got nothing to lose when five or 10 years down the line we could realise how good we had things under the current arrangement."

He said arguments on social media were "getting quite aggressive on both sides. It's stirring a lot of passions. To vote no is to be seen to be in some way unpatriotic or to not have Scotland's best interests at heart when obviously that's not necessarily the case. A lot of people are voting no because they don't want to see the country go into a period of great uncertainty where things could go badly wrong."