Cladded multimode fiber optic tapers are proposed as chemical sensors using evanescent wave absorption. There is no need to strip the cladding; therefore, fabrication is easy and the taper is mechanically stronger than the taper without cladding. The transmission property and evanescent wave absorption are modeled using ray theory and wave theory, respectively. Effects of some parameters on the absorption sensitivity are analyzed numerically. Due to the presence of the cladding, the taper core is not in direct contact with the external medium, leading to some significant differences from the uncladded one, especially when the index of the external medium approaches the index of cladding or core. Tapers are fabricated and absorption experiments are conducted to show the feasibility of such a chemical sensor.