diff --git a/caravel/viz.py b/caravel/viz.py
index 797c5363edeb9..7d863fde321dd 100644
--- a/caravel/viz.py
+++ b/caravel/viz.py
@@ -217,10 +217,12 @@ def query_obj(self):
     def cache_timeout(self):
         if self.slice and self.slice.cache_timeout:
             return self.slice.cache_timeout
-        return (
-            self.datasource.cache_timeout or
-            self.datasource.database.cache_timeout or
-            config.get("CACHE_DEFAULT_TIMEOUT"))
+        if self.datasource.cache_timeout:
+            return self.datasource.cache_timeout
+        if hasattr(self.datasource, 'database') \
+                and self.datasource.database.cache_timeout:
+            return self.datasource.database.cache_timeout
+        return config.get("CACHE_DEFAULT_TIMEOUT")
 
     def get_json(self):
         """Handles caching around the json payload retrieval"""