UTC is indeed the default time zone.

$ perl -Mv5.14 -e'use DateTime; say DateTime->now->time_zone->name'
UTC
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It's also in the documentation.

For local time, use

my $now = DateTime->now( time_zone => 'local' );
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---

All of these could be considered EST5EDT:

Name (bold) and Aliases	Location observed
America/New_York US/Eastern	US, most areas of many states
America/Detroit	US, MI, most areas
America/Indiana/Indianapolis America/Fort_Wayne America/Indianapolis	US, IN, most areas
America/Indiana/Marengo	US, IN, Crawford
America/Indiana/Petersburg	US, IN, Pike
America/Indiana/Vevay	US, IN, Switzerland
America/Indiana/Vincennes	US, IN, Da/Du/K/Mn
America/Indiana/Winamac	US, IN, Pulaski
America/Kentucky/Louisville America/Louisville	US, KY, Louisville area
America/Kentucky/Monticello	US, KY, Wayne
America/Toronto America/Montreal America/Thunder_Bay America/Nipigon America/Nassau	CA, ON CA, QC BS
America/Iqaluit America/Pangnirtung	CA, NU
America/Grand_Turk	TC
America/Port-au-Prince	HT

(WTF Indiana? That's not even including the parts of Indiana that couldn't be considered EST5EDT!)

Assuming you mean the US Eastern Time, use the following instead

my $now = DateTime->now( time_zone => 'America/New_York' );
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Or if you prefer the alias,

my $now = DateTime->now( time_zone => 'US/Eastern' );
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