In Rails, what’s the nicest way to create a specific time (not now) in a particular time zone?

I think you’re looking for

Time.find_zone('Alaska').local(2011,1,1)
=> Sat, 01 Jan 2011 00:00:00 AKST -09:00

Time.find_zone('Amsterdam').local(2011,1,1)
=> Sat, 01 Jan 2011 00:00:00 CET +01:00 

Time.find_zone('Sydney').local(2011,1,1)
=> Sat, 01 Jan 2011 00:00:00 EST +11:00  

Time.find_zone('Wellington').local(2011,1,1)
=> Sat, 01 Jan 2011 00:00:00 NZDT +13:00

This also works with parse

Time.find_zone('Sydney').parse('2011-04-12 2pm')
=> Tue, 12 Apr 2011 14:00:00 EST +10:00