diff --git a/caravel/viz.py b/caravel/viz.py
index 797c5363edeb..70af9d77dac5 100644
--- a/caravel/viz.py
+++ b/caravel/viz.py
@@ -233,7 +233,15 @@ def get_json(self):
             logging.info("Serving from cache")
         else:
             is_cached = False
-            cache_timeout = self.cache_timeout
+            config_cache_timeout = config.get("CACHE_DEFAULT_TIMEOUT")
+            try:
+                cache_timeout = self.cache_timeout
+            except Exception as e:
+                logging.exception(e)
+                if config_cache_timeout:
+                    cache_timeout = config_cache_timeout
+                else:
+                    cache_timeout = 0
             payload = {
                 'data': self.get_data(),
                 'query': self.query,
@@ -246,7 +254,7 @@ def get_json(self):
             payload['cached_dttm'] = datetime.now().isoformat().split('.')[0]
             logging.info("Caching for the next {} seconds".format(
                 cache_timeout))
-            cache.set(cache_key, payload, timeout=self.cache_timeout)
+            cache.set(cache_key, payload, timeout=cache_timeout)
         payload['is_cached'] = is_cached
         return dumps(payload)